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Memorable, crazy movie

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Natalie Portman was excellent, the rest of the cast very good especially Charlie Tahan who played the the stepchild. The sound track was spot on. Only confusing part to me was I watched it on Netflix as "The Other Woman " when the actual title was " Love and other impossible pursuits ".

Emilia Greenleaf (Natalie Portman) is the hated 2nd wife to Jack Woolf (Scott Cohen) in Manhattan. Her stepson William (Charlie Tahan) hates her. He keeps taking digs at her dead baby. She was a paralegal who had an affair with the married Jack. He divorced his doctor wife Carolyn (Lisa Kudrow) to marry her when she got pregnant. Carolyn had poisoned William's mind against Emilia. Just as Emilia has a good day with William, Jack tells her that Carolyn is pregnant.The kid is so annoying. I understand that he needs to be annoying but there is something extra problematic with the performance. It would be helpful for Tahan to show that he knows that he's doing harm but he's playing it very flat. He needs to smile or any emotion after breaking her down each time. He's playing this like Damien from The Omen. The audience needs to get inside of his mind. I don't need to like the kid but he needs to show that he's human. It may be unfair to ask for a master performance from a child actor but this role really needs it. Natalie Portman acts her brains out but I don't care about any of their relationships. This could be an interesting relationship movie about Emilia and William but it's not really there.

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.

The characters in this story are incredibly complex. Lisa Kudrow delivers a surprisingly good performance as the bitter, angry ex wife. Natalie Portman is great as she always is. She delivers a role that is snarky, cute and even heartbreaking at times. It is difficult to feel pity for a person who caused a divorce but the combination of Natalie Portman's and Lisa Kudrow's performances makes it easier than one might expect. The Other Woman is frustrating at times as you want to jump into the movie and slap sense into a couple of people. The emotional struggles each character goes through during the course of this film is well depicted. The dysfunctional family is best depicted in William's picture of his family.The ultimate horror of this movie has any viewer feel terrible for Natalie Portman as she was the cause for any new parent's worst nightmare. The reveal of what she did makes the way she acted throughout the movie much more understandable as it seemed to be slightly confusing that she would be so much more affected than anyone else in the film. The composition of songs feels a little bit TV movie. The orchestrated score used for background music at times in this film feels cheesy at best. I liked the movie but it was a bit depressing and tough to watch at times. I would recommend watching this movie to some people but not everyone. It is a tough watch as there are so many different emotions the viewer is put through. Lastly, Charlie Tahan is perfect for that role! He shines in the ice skating scene. Finally, the room gets a little bit "dusty" toward the end as Lisa Kudrow's character makes up for her actions throughout the movie. Tough scene. But this scene is immediately trumped when Emilia gives William a boat. That entire sequence is beautiful and probably the perfect way to finish this movie. Well done!