Review: Women in Trouble

And now for something completely different: From Sebastian Gutierrez, scripter of Gothika and Snakes on a Plane, there is Women in Trouble, a wildly uneven but compulsively watchable mix of high camp and grand passions, soap opera and soft-core sex. Very much in the deliriously lewd style of Pedro Almodovar – who has co-written unproduced scripts with Gutierrez, and gets a shout-out in the closing credits – this exuberantly uninhibited indie, which recently world premiered at SXSW, has the anything-goes spirit of something tossed off in a single burst of collaborative energy. As director, Gutierrez serves his saucy scenario well, maintaining a pace that seldom decelerates from a hot trot while maneuvering through a busy patchwork of interconnected plotlines. (Simply offering a synopsis of its crazy-quilt plot likely will prove problematical for any critic bound by limited wordcounts.) But the candy-colored blur wouldn’t count for nearly as much without the full-throttle performances by a virtually all-female cast led by a gorgeously game Carla Gugino (above) and a sexily perplexed Adrianne Palicki. You can read my Variety review here.