Taglines: Love makes everything possible.
Emilia Greenleaf’s (Natalie Portman) life is turned upside down when she begins an affair with married high-powered attorney Jack Woolf and learns she is pregnant. After his quick divorce and their quick wedding, it is revealed through a series of flashbacks that her baby girl Isabel died three days after her birth from SIDS. Vilified as a homewrecker, she attracts the unyielding ire of his furious ex-wife, physician Carolyn, who is revealed to also be pregnant (after she heard about Emilia’s pregnancy, she realized that she too wanted another child).
Emilia thinks that this is purely out of spite. Now she must come to terms with her stepson, William (Tahan), who upsets her with constant references to her dead baby (including saying that under the terms of Jewish law, Isabel did not live long enough to be considered a full human being). Emilia’s efforts to bond with William do not go well and succeed only in making both Carolyn and Jack think less of her.
After trying to carry the load on her own, her life finally collapses, and Jack tells her he cannot go on with the relationship. Emilia has a breakdown during a fight where she reveals to Jack that the baby did not die in her crib but in fact in her arms: she believes that she killed her own baby. She then tells him that she can also no longer do this, and leaves Jack alone, crying over their daughter.
She moves out, tentatively mends fences with her father (who earlier had cheated on her mother), and joins her old friends at a Legal Aid office. She is surprised when Carolyn calls her and asks her to come by her office. After initially being upset about Emilia moving out, Carolyn admits to telling William there is a possibility Emilia did accidentally kill Isabel because of Emilia’s thoughtless ways; Carolyn seems chastened when she adds that her son was angry at her attitude and told her she should be ashamed of herself.
She then tells a stunned Emilia that she has personally looked into the autopsy report on Isabel, and she can confirm that Emilia did not kill her baby. Emilia starts crying in realization that she has been punishing herself for so long, and that it was not her fault. Emilia later goes to Jack and tells him the full story, and while he tells her at that point that he cannot reconcile with her, a crisis involving Carolyn’s City Hall wedding and William leads to Emilia getting through to his son and Jack saying he wants to go on a date with her, leaving Emilia happy and strongly hinting the couple will get back together soon.
The Other Woman (released in the United Kingdom as Love and Other Impossible Pursuits) is an American drama film written and directed by Don Roos. The film is based on the Ayelet Waldman novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and distributed by Incentive Film Distribution in the US. The film stars Natalie Portman, Lisa Kudrow, Scott Cohen, and Charlie Tahan.
The Other Woman
Directed by: Don Roos
Starring: Natalie Portman, Lisa Kudrow, Lauren Ambrose, Anthony Rapp, Charlie Tahan, Elizabeth Marvel, Mona Fastvold, Maria Dizzia, Debra Monk
Screenplay by: Don Roos, Ayelet Waldman
Production Design by: Michael Shaw
Cinematography by: Steve Yedlin
Film Editing by: David Codron
Set Decoration by: Carol Silverman
Art Direction by: Nithya Shrinivasan
Music by: John Swihart
MPAA Rating: R for sexual content and language.
Studio: IFC Films
Release Date: February 4, 2011
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