The Woman in Red (1984)

The Woman in Red is yet another of those movies that have been on my watchlist since the dawn of times and that, for a reason or another, I've been putting off forever. Since it's only an hour and a half long and lately I don't have a lot of time to watch movies, I finally watched it. 

The story follows Theodore "Teddy" Pierce (Gene Wilder), a happily married family man who would never even consider cheating on his wife, Didi (Judith Ivey). Things are about to change when he meets a beautiful woman in red (Kelly LeBrock) — he's smitten by her and totally infatuated and he tries various schemes only to realise that cheating is not as easy as it looks.

It comes without saying that The Woman in Red is a dumb movie, one with an extremely simple and thin plot featuring some predictable twists. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it goes straight to the point without wasting tons of time to set up the story, and because of this the laughs begin immediately. Kind of, actually, as the majority of the jokes and gags fall as flat as a board. 

The writing doesn't get any better in terms of characters as they all have no depth whatsoever — the male characters are just a bunch of men who are either having an affair or thinking about and/or trying to have an affair; the female characters too are a bunch of women cheating on their husbands. Basically, there isn't a single likeable character in this, not a single one of them to root for — I guess we are supposed to root for Teddy, especially after learning that his wife is already cheating on him, but I was just disgusted by every single one of these people I couldn't pick one to root for. 

Orion Picture

And now the acting. I've always enjoyed Gene Wilder so far but in here he's pathetic, to say the least. He plays a desperate and frantic character who is supposed to be the main source of laughs, but Wilder's material is so poor, he is unbearable to watch. Kelly LeBrock is nothing but eye candy, and the rest of the cast does nothing other than essentially reading their lines.

In a few words, The Woman in Red is a huge misfire from Wilder, and, while there are some funny-ish moments here and there and Stevie Wonder's songs are fantastic, the film is overall a quite unfunny and tedious comedy whose short running feels like an eternity.