Women

Five female friends cope with unfaithful spouses, health problems, insubordinate children, and other domestic crises as they deal with reaching the big 4-0. Too bad the impressive cast (Carmen Maura, Miou-Miou, Marisa Berenson, Marthe Keller, and Guesch Patti) is saddled with a rather contrived and melodramatic take on the ups-and-downs of middle age--along with its attendant questions about sex appeal, encroaching mortality, and all the rest. The premise here turns on the fact that one of the gals is a television producer making a documentary in which she gets to ask her interviewees for their three fondest wishes. Both unconvincingly upbeat and full of sham solutions to the myriad problems of its characters, Women is a pretty shallow treatment of serious themes; not unlike, come to think of it, a television show. Very optional. (T. Rich)