Screener Girl Checks Out NBC's New Series Lipstick Jungle
My old boss always told me to start with the good and end with the bad when administering a review. So the best thing about the women-are-powerful-and-awesome show Lipstick Jungle is the men. Paul Blackthorne, Andrew McCarthy, Julian Sands, and Robert Buckley are great. Since it’s a show all about women power, the men are relegated, respectively, to the not-famous-enough-husband of the movie exec, the billionaire that loves a failing fashion designer, the horrible men-are-better-than-women magazine publisher, and the boy toy. In their small roles, I believe them more than I believe the women. I will also say that I like that the characters aren’t in their early 20s and that they’ve all had to work for everything they’ve gotten….
But now the bad, in general. I don’t think that these three women, were they real, would actually be friends. I don’t buy it. I don’t believe Brooke Shields as a studio executive, especially the way she handles the conversation her character “Wen”-dy has on the phone with “Leo”-nardo DiCaprio about a Galileo movie. It just sounded like Brooke Shields was condescending to say the words on the page, like she knew it was horrible, too. Her Wendy is an “I’m-more-successful-than-my-husband-but-I-only-bring-that-up-when-I-need-to-win-an-argument” type of wife who worries about impressing the corporate world and still being a good mother. Oh and already, there might be a tell-all book from her nanny? Also, Lindsay Price’s Victory is on the top 50 most powerful women in NY list, but her fashion line is failing, for no real reason, I guess, other than her one show was horrible? I don’t know. I’m not sure I quite get it. But Andrew McCarthy’s Joe falls for her anyway and she’s found her inspiration from a ten year old hat that she made back in design school? Yeah, it makes about as much sense as the sentence you just read. And Nico….oh Kim Raver, where do I start? You deserve so much better. Nico is a magazine editor that isn’t taken seriously because she’s a woman, who may or may not have mentioned to the publisher’s wife at a bridal shower that she may or may not want children some day. And her husband doesn’t notice her. Her affair with a 25-year-old she meets at a launch party is pretty predictable (and spoiled in all of the trailers), but I’ll give her that it’s totally hot. I’ve read other reviews that say Lorraine Bracco is great in this, but I thought she was grating and ridiculous in her supporting role as a book editor with a grudge against Wendy. I just didn’t like any of the women in this show.
