Superb acting in 'Women' all for naught

‘‘The Women” is a remake of a movie from the 1930s, but it seems like a throwback to the Stone Age.

The film preaches that when a man cheats on his wife, it’s only because she didn’t lavish him with enough attention.

Huh? I’ve always thought men cheat because their wives neglected the ironing or were late at getting dinner on the table.

Not so, learns Mary (Meg Ryan), a dress designer whose Wall Street kingpin hubby strays with a sultry perfume-counter girl (Eva Mendes).

Mary’s pal, Sylvia (Annette Bening), is the first to learn of the fling, hearing about it from her manicurist.

She vows to keep it a secret but spills to her two other best friends, Alex (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Edie (Debra Messing), because, you know, girls are such gossips.

The trio confront Mary, but only after she’s learned the truth from Sylvia’s manicurist.

The situation causes big problems for Mary, because everyone knows women need men to be happy, except for Alex, who is a lesbian. Mary’s kindly mother (Candice Bergen) tells her to forget all about it, just like she did when Mary’s father slept around.

As you watch, you’re certain this is all just a setup. Surely these pre-feminism stereotypes are being established simply to be shattered in a “Thelma & Louise”-like epiphany.

But no. The stereotypes just sprawl until they choke every rational thought off the screen.

To make matters worse, a high-end department store figures so heavily into the plot that the arrangement goes past product placement and instead feels like a movie wedged into a two-hour commercial.

The acting is superb, as you’d expect from such a strong cast. A highlight is Carrie Fisher as a gossip columnist who corners Sylvia for dirt on Mary’s problems.

But it’s all for naught. The movie is at its best in the intimate conversations that help forge bonds between the main characters. Mary, who decides that she has put too much emphasis on charity and social events at the expense of tending to her husband and daughter, slogs through a quest of self-realization that her friends hope leads her back into the arms of her husband.

Writer-director Diane English, a veteran of “My Sister Sam” and “Murphy Brown,” remakes George Cukor’s 1939 film, which starred Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford.

Like Cukor, English rounded up an all-female cast, including the extras. Unlike with Cukor, English’s gender-specific casting wasn’t intentional — it was just that every male actor was repelled by the sappy script.

That was a joke, but “The Women” is alarmingly serious about its egregiously sexist and misguided notions.