Review: Women in Trouble DVD

STUDIO: Screen Media | DIRECTOR: Sebastian Gutierrez | STARS: Carla Gugino, Connie Britton, Marley Shelton, Emmanuelle Chriqui
RELEASE DATE: 2/16/2010 | PRICE: DVD $24.98, Blu-ray $29.98
BONUSES: extended/deleted scenes
SPECS: R | 90 min. | Comedy | widescreen | 5.1 Surround Sound | English and Spanish subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

There are a handful of solid production elements floating through writer/director/producer Sebastian Gutierrez’s (Girl Walks Into a Bar) Women in Trouble — an attractive cast led by Carla Gugino (Every Day) and Marley Shelton (Grindhouse), a lively soundtrack by Robyn Hitchcock, a stylish and sexy wardrobe by Denise Wingate (costume designer for Hall Pass) — but all that can provide only so much icing for this mildly engaging, Pedro Almodovar-esque ensemble movie about love and sex and women in modern Los Angeles.

Working women cover the canvass in this independent film — prostitutes, porn stars, flight attendants, mother and wives — and, like the women in Almodovar’s movies, all appear to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Affairs, betrayals, revealed secrets and some undeniably sexy seductions keep the largely female cast busy as they fall in and out of love and passion on a candy-colored collection of interiors that also smack of Pedro’s sex comedies of the 1990s, such as Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!.

Of the many intertwining story threads, the most appealing are those of pregnant porn star Elektra Luxx (Gugino), who is more fully explored in her own film, and a flight attendant (Shelton) who has a unique Mile High Club story.

Other labored ladies on hand to deliver cutesy-clever zingers are Connie Britton (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Saint John of Las Vegas) and Adrianne Palicki (Legion).

Oh, and such actors as Josh Brolin (You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger), Simon Baker (TV’s The Mentalist) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception) are also featured — but none appear in various states of undress as do the actresses of the ensemble. Hmmmm…

The disc is light on special features, just offering some deleted and extended scenes.

 

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.