Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Reno Rangan It is also known as 'Love and Other Impossible Pursuits', which is the name of the book the film was adapted. According to me this is a very underrated film. Especially Natalie Portman was never seen before. This film was beautiful because of her. Might have been the same if any other actress who had played that role, but the thing is the character Emilia makes this story great. I would have given any top award the available around the globe for that incredible character display. It should have been recognised, sadly that did not happen because of the filthy film critics.Feels good watching it. This might not be a biographical film, but surely this is happening around us. The writing was so impressive. How the character Emilia was portrayed is the film's highlight. It was a simple character, that does not mean the life has to be simple as well. She falls in love with a married man and later she get married to him to become a step-mother to his child. That's where the problem arises when her baby dies in her arm, everybody points her for not being cautious with her step-son. This is a big task and how she comes out of it was revealed with lots of small twists and turns in the tale.Not just Natalie, but all the supporting cast was brilliant, including the husband, the kid and the ex. The story of loss, marriage, taking care a child and other struggles in life. Initially it did not look good with those affairs, but when it got past the half way mark, the rest of the film rebalanced the entire film. I liked how it ended. That final scene was very good. Even if you are an atheist, that end dialogues makes the major difference to favour the film. I haven't read the book, but seems the film was better than the book. Being a film fanatic and failing to recommending it to you would be a mistake. So I recommend it to particularly the grown-ups.8/10

Tomas Maly I have to say that I really don't understand where any of the other reviews are coming from. Everyone is way off. I got the impression from the reviews that Natalie Portman's character was a bad person. But she (and the stepson) were the only likable characters. She may have made a few mistakes with the stepson, but where anyone got the idea (especially the idiotic husband/father) that she somehow wanted to harm the stepson, it's really uncalled for and disturbing to watch. So she made a mistake about feeding him dairy when he was lactose intolerant - she thought the ex-wife was being an overprotective witch and tried calling out on that matter. So she let the boy ice skate without a helmet. He had a thick hat on and he had fun, didn't get hurt, and they actually bonded. The attacks on her quality of step-parenting is way out of line.I don't understand how anyone could think she was vicious to people because of losing her baby. Maybe Natalie Portman played the character differently than in the original novel. Maybe the script was translated poorly. I just didn't get the feeling that she was a bad person at all, nor did I get the feeling that she was lashing out at anyone unjustifiably or that she was projecting her grief onto others through rage. She wasn't at all. I would characterize this movie as thorny, but things start to clean up near the end. I was expecting a downward spiral toward devastation based on the reviews and that didn't happen. Things didn't magically turn wonderful but things did start to turn around for the better. The times that Natalie Portman's character lashed out at others was justified at the other person's poor behavior. She got angry at her stepson when he kept forcing the idea of selling the deceased baby's possessions on eBay. I can understand that, it's insensitive for him to say. She also lashed out at her own father for his infidelity in the past, and that, too, was justified. He cheated on his wife (her mom), and nobody had actually shown any anger at him until then. How anyone could say that she has no right to be angry at her father is beyond me - her mom was hurt, and children can take on that pain as their own, to be protective.She was a decent stepmom and I don't see how anyone could say she and her stepson had a difficult relationship. That was entirely a projection of the ex-wife's viciousness onto her, through the son. It made her seem like a neglectful stepmom, but she was a good one as far as I'm concerned. The ex-wife was just vicious, beyond bitter. Apparently the young new wife broke up the marriage but my impression was that the marriage was already over with. As the movie progresses, the step son starts showing empathy toward the stepmom and deceased baby sister and so he starts developing a more likable character. The husband really is just cold and never really actually shows empathy or care toward the wife. He never really sides with her and finds every opportunity to side against her. He's of course dealing with the viciousness of his ex-wife, but he doesn't stand up for his new wife nearly as much as he could/should, and projects some of that negativity onto Natalie Portman's character. He is soon to reject her and let the marriage fall apart than actually be forgiving toward her struggles. There is a certain bias that he seems to have that she is worth discarding and a difficult woman to deal with, but I really don't see how that is justified. The only love that I could see in this movie ended up being between the boy and his stepmom. Everyone else was just so cold. Maybe that's just bad acting, bad script, I dunno.In the end, the boy overhears her worries that she somehow smothered her baby, and he asks his mom (the ex-wife), who happens to be a doctor, about the matter, and the ex-wife patches up the bridge by investigating the matter to reassure her that the baby did die of natural causes.This movie reminded me of the film "A Serious Man" by the Coen brothers, that had a very distinct Jewish cynical theme of the victim being blamed for the tragedy itself, when everyone else around them is the problem. I don't know if this is a theme in Jewish culture, but it's a bit disturbing.The movie is definitely a bit thorny, and character behavior does seem out of place or projected incorrectly. Maybe on purpose, maybe a certain Jewish cynicism, maybe just a messy script-from-book to work with. Like A Serious Man, it may not be something you can watch more than once, because it may just be too emotionally difficult/tumultuous.

Jackson Booth-Millard I may have seen a review or discussion for this film on television, it sounded like something I was willing to give a try, and with her recent Oscar win for Black Swan I was intrigued more with the inclusion of the leading actress. Basically twenty two year Emilia Greenleaf (Natalie Portman) is an aspiring Harvard lawyer in Manhattan who despite him being married had a strong crush on her good looking boss and senior partner Jack Woolf (Scott Cohen), and they begin an affair. His marriage with his wife Carolyn (Lisa Kudrow) was a sham, but the son that they had together, five year old William (Charlie Tahan), is his pride and joy, and his marriage finally comes to end when he discovers Emilia is pregnant, divorces his wife and marries his new partner. The only trouble for Emilia is that she cannot bond very well with Jack's son William, the little boy has been poisoned against her and the partnership by Carolyn, and she equally resents him and going backwards and forwards at moments in time we see why she gains this attitude. She already had her own problems with her father who cheated on her mother and constantly womanises, but it is after the death of her baby Isabel that the problems really started between the husband and wife and the child. The baby was born and absolutely fine, but after only three days of life it died in Emilia's arms, she assumes that while sleeping she must have unintentionally smothered Isabel against her, and William does not help the situation asking her questions about it, such as suggesting selling stuff on eBay, specifically the unneeded cribs and toys. As the marriage between her and Jack slowly starts breaking apart because of her grief and feeling of guilt, William unexpectedly is the one who may bring them back together, and in a rare moment of sympathy Carolyn also offers her some comfort, and she is the one that confirms that baby Isabel died from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), so Emilia and the family can move on. Also starring Lauren Ambrose as Mindy, Michael Cristofer as Sheldon, Debra Monk as Laura and Elizabeth Marvel as Pia. Portman is relatively good as the mother trying hard to keep her family but struggling with terrible grief, high guilt and domestic stress, Cohen does alright as the husband trying to help, and Kudrow is actually a good choice as the bitchy ex-wife trying to cause more problems. The story certainly has its needed moving moments, and obviously it is a realistic situation, the only problem is that it is not all paced the right way, the emotions seem a bit too much on occasions, and to be honest I got bored before half way through, so it was a disappointing drama. Adequate!

pc95 "The Other Woman", directed by Don Roos, is an overall satisfying and turbulent drama set in New York City regarding well-to-do families and inter-relationships as well as extra-marital consequences. At the conclusion, my wife and I agreed that we had some pretty heavy disdain for Portman's character (Emelia) who immorally ignored the fact that the man she was attracted to was married going after him or allowing him anyway. The hypocrisy that the script finally goes over a bit when relating to her own father cheating was a good angle to explore. None of this is really though the focus of the movie but more theatrics. Easily what makes this movie very good is the wonderful relationship that blossoms out between Emelia and stepson William with all it's friction. The ending scene is outstanding and helps you look past other clichés and short-comings.