More aptly titled Script in Trouble, this campy misfire is an embarrassing waste of talent for such a good cast. Written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez, this film unimaginatively recycles the work of Pedro Almodovar to create a prurient piece of trashy kitsch.
Gutierrez, whose unimpressive resume includes the screenplays for Gothika, The Eye and Snakes on a Plane, delivers an unsatisfying patchwork of soap opera and sexual farce. He seems to confuse clever, colorful dialogue with tedious vulgarity. There’s lots of talk about sex but none of it is interesting or titillating. The movie starts with a male sex fantasy that turns out to be a scene from a porno film; the scene is supposed to mock the silliness of porn but the rest of the film barely rises above that level itself.
The web of interconnected relationships between nine women, each going through a crisis, forms the crux of the story. The problem is that they’re all so annoying and self-destructive that it’s hard to care what happens to them. The ensemble cast of talented actresses does their best to breath life into these ciphers but unfortunately there is no amount of cinematic CPR that can resuscitate such shallow characters.
Electra Lux (Carla Gugino) is a well known porn star who learns she is pregnant. Electra bonds with Doris (Connie Britton) while stuck in an elevator. Doris is having trouble with her sister Addy (Caitlin Keats) and her niece Charlotte. She also has a secret she’s been keeping for years. Addy and Charlotte are both seeing the same shrink, Maxine (Sarah Clarke) but Addy keeps sneaking off to have a quickie with Maxine’s husband Travis (Simon Baker) while Charlotte is having a session.
Another porno actress is dumb blonde Holly (Adrianne Palicki) who joins her call girl BFF Bambi (Emmanuelle Chriqui) to sexually double team a rich man but instead they end up getting involved with the distraught Maxine. Thick-skulled Holly, who has a habit of putting her head behind cars that are backing up and getting knocked to the ground, ends up in the care of a lesbian couple, Rita (Rya Kihlstedt), a friendly bartender, and Darby (Cameron Richardson), a compassionate masseuse who takes a liking to Holly.
In a plot that barely connects to the rest of the film, stewardess Cora (Marley Shelton) is attracted to scruffy rock star Nick Chapel (Josh Brolin) who is a passenger on her flight. Naturally enough, they end up having sex in the bathroom. A weak plot twist links Cora’s story to Electra’s at the end. The plot about Doris comes closest to having some pathos but never quite makes it. Carla Gugino gives the best performance as Electra Lux, and a spin-off film about Electra is in the works. We can only hope its better than this empty effort.
Josh Brolin, who received such acclaim for his role in the Best Picture-winning No Country for Old Men a few years ago, makes absolutely no impression in his minor role as Chapel. But male characters only exist peripherally as evil caricatures in this film.
The women are all attractive and sexy and we’re reminded of that because every female character is required to undress at some point, including a completely gratuitous scene where two women strip in an elevator. It’s a pity the dialogue makes them seem so repulsive.
In the hands of a better writer this concept of women on the verge of a nervous breakdown might have yielded some entertaining and insightful results. However, Gutierrez is not the man for the job. All he can give us is watered down Almodovar. The situations become increasingly outrageous and the dialogue is like a bad fan-fiction script for Sex in the City. There’s little to recommend about Women in Trouble except for a strong cast who is victimized by a weak, meandering, unoriginal script.
DVD Bonus Features
The DVD offers some deleted scenes which, sadly, are no more interesting that the rest of the movie. There are also some teaser trailers and an option for spanish language subtitles.
"Women in Trouble (DVD)" is on sale February 16, 2010 and is rated R. Comedy, Drama. Written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez. Starring Adrianne Palicki, Carla Gugino, Connie Britton, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Simon Baker.
