WOMEN IN TROUBLE is basically 92 minutes of girl-talk. It’s an ensemble cast of girls having conversations about their tough, interesting and eventful day. It’s like a female Crash, if you will. Don’t expect a laugh riot, in fact, do expect… a slow build-up and occasional pointless moments but just like a drug that takes its time to finally kick in, WOMEN IN TROUBLE eventually will find its way under your skin. Carla Gugino’s performance is worth watching, she jumps up from being a Watchmen girl to being an actor with skills equivalent to Julia Roberts.
From acclaimed writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez comes an outrageous, genre-bending, multi-layered comedy about one day in the lives of ten seemingly disparate women – including a porn star, a flight attendant, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a bartender and a pair of call girls — all with one thing in common: trouble. Carla Gugino (”Sin City”) stars as Elektra Luxx, a world-famous porn star whose future is thrown for a loop with the news that she’s pregnant and Adrianne Palicki (”Friday Night Lights”) is Holly Rocket, a not-too-bright adult industry newcomer with an inconvenient aversion to girl-girl action. Their paths intersect with, among others, a hilariously suave British Rock Star (Josh Brolin), a bright neurotic with a dark past (Connie Britton, “Friday Night Lights”) and a call girl with a tricky client (Emmanuelle Chriqui, “Entourage”).
Writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez’s sense of humor didn’t quite hit the spot, no pun intended. A story of a few porn stars colliding with a depressed, heartbroken housewife and a stranger in an elevator with a girl who pretends to smoke while connected indirectly two flight attendants thousands of feet above air, you would think that would be a good formula for some laugh out loud good time but on the contrary, Gutierrez’s style is more grounded, I guess you can’t expect much from the same guy who wrote Snakes On A Plane, but if there’s one thing that Gutierrez does right with WOMEN IN TROUBLE is that it connects with female audiences in a way that tears down all the walls and look past these girls’ professions. On top of that, Gutierrez knows how to resolve the situation, they may be in trouble but in the end you know they’re going to be all right, life has a way of working itself out and in this case, it means women are stronger when they stick together.
The build up is slow, at times you might even think it’s going nowhere. What you need to understand is that this is one of those movies that emphasize dialogue. And none of the chat is toned down, this is not Gilmore Girls. These characters are often brutally honest to the point of no shame, some because they’re airheads, some because they just quickly put trust in other women, they’re not afraid to open up, some because, well, put two people in one room long enough, and they’re bound to become either best of friends or mortal nemesis. They say most problems can be solved by communication, WOMEN IN TROUBLE pretty much shows that. One women talks, the other listens, vice versa, it’s a female therapy session. The housewife/shrink, played by Sarah Clarke who’s been listening to every problem that arrives in her office, is finally speaking up and asking why her husband would rather have an affair than to feel enough just loving her. This is what gets me seated through the entire movie, first-half may be a bit of a chaos but it’s a controlled chaos and halfway through, once you get to each revelation, you get a new-found sense of appreciation for WOMEN IN TROUBLE.
All of the actresses involved give fantastic performances, it’s entertaining to see them arguing with each other, trying to reason with each other, talking one out of doing something or talking one into committing something. It’s good as it is that all these women are attractive, seeing that they have actual acting talents is a bonus point. Actress Adrianne Palicky especially, who plays the less than smart porn star, is the most amusing one of all.
But the movie belongs to Carla Gugino, as the legendary porn star Electra Luxx, probably in the same class as Jenna Jameson, Gugino understands her character fully that despite all the uncertainties around her and the uncertainty that comes with the big news at the doctor’s office, Luxx seems to be absolutely certain about what would be the right thing for her to do and she’d pass that on to her friend. Gugino is vulnerable and tough all at once.
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