I always feel a bit sorry for Lisa Kudrow. She was the one nobody fancied in Friends, opposite stunningly beautiful Courteney Cox and ever perky Jennifer Aniston, always having to wear unbecoming, weird clothes and getting the freaky boyfriends. A bit like Cynthia Nixon in Sex and the city: in any other setting she'd be a beautiful girl, but here she was the “ugly” one. 

And, like Nixon, Kudrow's never managed to shake it. No matter how many flops Jennifer Aniston has under her belt, the recent Bouty Hunter being a case in point, she's still the romantic lead, whereas Kudrow has been the one in the background. The Other Woman is nodifferent from any of her other post-Friends movies, as she plays second fiddle to Natalie Portman, whose terrible movies are being dusted off now she's in the running for an Academy Award.

Emilia (Natalie Portman) hooks up with much older, married colleague Jack (a very spineless Scott Cohen). He leaves his wife Carolyn (Lisa Kudrow) when Emilia gets knocked up. When their baby daughter dies, Emilia has to deal with the son Jack already had with his first wife. Emilia finds it very hard to come to terms with people classing her as a homewrecker and Jack's son constantly referring to her dead baby. 

This is not an inspired movie, by a long chalk. Even from merely watching the trailer you can see that it's basically Stepmom, but without the ex wife dying. Lisa Kudrow plays the very much alive ex, Carolyn, who doesn't take kindly to being left for someone half her age. Things are okay while her son is making Emilia's life hell, but when they start forming a new, happy, little family she gets angry.

And who can really blame her? She had a perfectly nice family and somebody younger and prettier messed it all up. 

The fact that they shelved this movie for two years (it was ready to go in 2009) and changed the title from Love and other impossible pursuits to the generic The Other woman doesn't bode well for their expectations. Add to that that it's in limited release, and you can bet your bottom dollar that not a hell of a lot of people are ging to fork out money to see it in the cinema. 

Its only possible cash cow is Natalie Portman, who may be well under way to an Oscar for her stellar performance in Black Swan. Failing that this is really straight to dvd material, no matter how well Portman and Kudrow may act. And please, someone, give Lisa Kudrow a decent part!