I'm not a fan of Roseanne Barr (or whatever she calls herself now), but this movie was a definite misfire. While the casting is awful--Ed Begley Jr. as anybody but a nebbish is simply wrong and Meryl Streep makes you wonder why she won anything related to an award for her acting--the film's overtones are very strange.
On the gender side, this movie attempts to make itself into a moralistic feminist play about how women are always mistreated by men. Unfortunately, the character of Ruth negates this by being more manipulative than her husband, especially in regards to using his second mistress to help frame him for fraud. Also, she takes on a very strange attitude towards revenge by attempting to destroy Meryl Streep before going after her husband. While her list notes that her husband is her focus, the movie takes an odd turn by seeking out Meryl's character as a moral lesson while destroying her husband. The film can never really rectify why Ruth hates her husband so much that she's going after the woman who supposedly lured him away. The film's ending takes some satisfaction in changing Mary into a more bitter and 'learned' woman but doesn't really offer a real solution. Is Ruth going after her husband through this woman? And if she blames her husband for this, why is she going to such great lengths to destroy Mary since her husband is simply the kind of jerk who uses and then leaves women? Shouldn't have Ruth found more common ground with Mary after a while? And if one sees this through a class sensibility, Ruth's whole mission becomes pointlessly sadistic. Mary is of a higher-class and is rich to an extent. Ruth is a poor and ugly housewife with limited means. At the end, Ruth raises in class while Mary remains the same. Hence, Ruth could be seen as using her husband's infidelity as a means to rise above her own station. While Ruth's narrative diatribes about Mary 'learning' about being a wife are meant to be seen as some kind of validation for the troubles of a housewife who has to deal with various troubles to keep a family intact, it's hard not to notice that Ruth at the end will not go back to being the very housewife she supports. By rising herself out of revenge, she in fact becomes an image of Mary but causes her whole actions throughout the movie to be negated. Her whole character's motivation hinges on being an abused lower-class housewife who is going to knock down the higher-class woman down for stealing her man and at the end becomes exactly the same: successful in her own right. This is hypocrisy at its finest. And the dumping of her own children as some sort of object on their father completes the hypocrisy. The image of a housewife is something to be shown on a pedestal, but isn't recommended for a way of living. While this could mirror the life of Roseanne, it simply does not fit. How can you support a woman who is supposed to be an everyday woman (as the conceit goes) fighting for a sense of justice when she turns out to be the same as the woman who stole her man? This whole angle of thinking is what sinks the movie. Are we seeing revenge for Ruth, or are we seeing her fight back over the loss of property in the form of a husband which she doesn't want back anyway? And the movie cannot resolve this because then we get into weighty issues about what being a housewife truly is. By marketing itself as some sort of comical Lifetime Movie of the Week, the movie supports a position as the housewife/mother being some sort of holy figure to be supported and idealized. But with the ending showcasing a housewife 'evolved' into a businesswoman who joins the kids she abandoned as a part of her revenge to the husband she doesn't want back, this negates the whole plot. Why didn't she just dump her kids on the husband and forget about them all? The point of the revenge was to assuage her ego, which then marks the housewife/mother/Jesus figure as some sort of prison which one must escape since it was formed by a man. But since without the man this illusion breaks down, the movie instead becomes the story of a woman who seeks to better herself after a horrible betrayal and instead dwells in the past for petty revenge, hence sinking her moral high ground for absolutely nothing.
On the gender side, this movie attempts to make itself into a moralistic feminist play about how women are always mistreated by men. Unfortunately, the character of Ruth negates this by being more manipulative than her husband, especially in regards to using his second mistress to help frame him for fraud. Also, she takes on a very strange attitude towards revenge by attempting to destroy Meryl Streep before going after her husband. While her list notes that her husband is her focus, the movie takes an odd turn by seeking out Meryl's character as a moral lesson while destroying her husband. The film can never really rectify why Ruth hates her husband so much that she's going after the woman who supposedly lured him away. The film's ending takes some satisfaction in changing Mary into a more bitter and 'learned' woman but doesn't really offer a real solution. Is Ruth going after her husband through this woman? And if she blames her husband for this, why is she going to such great lengths to destroy Mary since her husband is simply the kind of jerk who uses and then leaves women? Shouldn't have Ruth found more common ground with Mary after a while? And if one sees this through a class sensibility, Ruth's whole mission becomes pointlessly sadistic. Mary is of a higher-class and is rich to an extent. Ruth is a poor and ugly housewife with limited means. At the end, Ruth raises in class while Mary remains the same. Hence, Ruth could be seen as using her husband's infidelity as a means to rise above her own station. While Ruth's narrative diatribes about Mary 'learning' about being a wife are meant to be seen as some kind of validation for the troubles of a housewife who has to deal with various troubles to keep a family intact, it's hard not to notice that Ruth at the end will not go back to being the very housewife she supports. By rising herself out of revenge, she in fact becomes an image of Mary but causes her whole actions throughout the movie to be negated. Her whole character's motivation hinges on being an abused lower-class housewife who is going to knock down the higher-class woman down for stealing her man and at the end becomes exactly the same: successful in her own right. This is hypocrisy at its finest. And the dumping of her own children as some sort of object on their father completes the hypocrisy. The image of a housewife is something to be shown on a pedestal, but isn't recommended for a way of living. While this could mirror the life of Roseanne, it simply does not fit. How can you support a woman who is supposed to be an everyday woman (as the conceit goes) fighting for a sense of justice when she turns out to be the same as the woman who stole her man? This whole angle of thinking is what sinks the movie. Are we seeing revenge for Ruth, or are we seeing her fight back over the loss of property in the form of a husband which she doesn't want back anyway? And the movie cannot resolve this because then we get into weighty issues about what being a housewife truly is. By marketing itself as some sort of comical Lifetime Movie of the Week, the movie supports a position as the housewife/mother being some sort of holy figure to be supported and idealized. But with the ending showcasing a housewife 'evolved' into a businesswoman who joins the kids she abandoned as a part of her revenge to the husband she doesn't want back, this negates the whole plot. Why didn't she just dump her kids on the husband and forget about them all? The point of the revenge was to assuage her ego, which then marks the housewife/mother/Jesus figure as some sort of prison which one must escape since it was formed by a man. But since without the man this illusion breaks down, the movie instead becomes the story of a woman who seeks to better herself after a horrible betrayal and instead dwells in the past for petty revenge, hence sinking her moral high ground for absolutely nothing.