Directed by and starring Gene Wilder | Also starring Kelly LeBrock, Gilda Radner, Charles Grodin
There are movies that age like fine wine… and then there’s The Woman in Red, a film that ages like potato salad left in the sun at a 1980s office picnic. It’s a sex farce for the dad-bod demographic, directed by Gene Wilder in a rare attempt at turning his neurotic charm into romantic leading-man mojo. What you get instead is a cringe-inducing tour through middle-aged horniness, accidental drag, and painfully bad dancing—briefly rescued, now and then, by the sheer visual perfection that is Kelly LeBrock.
Let’s be honest: this movie is like a sleazy limerick set to a Casio keyboard. It wants to be sophisticated, European, cheeky. What it delivers is a series of increasingly awkward moments where you just hope no one notices you watching it.
Gene Wilder: Comedy Legend, Romantic Lead… Please No
Gene Wilder is a legend. Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Willy Wonka—the man carved out a niche as the lovable lunatic with curly hair and manic eyes. But here? In The Woman in Red? He’s playing Teddy Pierce, a buttoned-up ad man going through a textbook midlife crisis. He sees a beautiful woman, instantly forgets he’s married, and spends the rest of the movie scheming to have an affair without ever really going through with it.
Teddy is a man of inaction. He fantasizes. He panics. He trips over his own shadow. The film treats him like a relatable everyman, but he comes across more like a sexually frustrated squirrel on tranquilizers. Wilder tries to charm his way through the script, but the whole thing has the energy of a sitcom episode that ran 45 minutes too long.
And when the movie asks us to root for this guy as he lies to his wife, bungles social situations, and nearly kills himself to get laid—you start rooting for the nearest meteorite instead.
Kelly LeBrock: Walking, Talking Reason This Film Exists
Let’s get this out of the way: Kelly LeBrock is stunning in this film. So stunning, in fact, that it feels like the entire movie was written around her slo-mo entrance in that red dress. When she steps over the air vent and her dress billows up in an homage to Marilyn Monroe, it’s not so much a scene as it is a spiritual awakening for half the male audience.
LeBrock plays Charlotte, the titular Woman in Red, and her job is to be the embodiment of unattainable beauty with just enough lines to legally qualify for SAG. She’s warm, flirtatious, and classy—a rare combination in a movie that treats women like either overbearing nags or walking lingerie catalogs.
The tragedy is that she’s barely in it. Her screen time feels like a contractual footnote, and when she is present, it’s mostly to react to Wilder like he’s a confused golden retriever that somehow wandered into her apartment.
Still, she lights up the screen every time she appears—and when she’s gone, the movie sags like a polyester suit in a rainstorm.
Gilda Radner Deserved Better
Gilda Radner plays Wilder’s co-worker who believes (wrongly) that she’s the object of his affections, and the result is a series of humiliating misunderstandings that play less like comedy and more like psychological warfare. She’s brilliant, of course—she always was—but the script gives her a character arc that starts with awkwardness and ends in total degradation.
She throws herself at Teddy, gets rejected, and then literally falls off a cliff. It’s supposed to be hilarious. It’s not. It’s like watching a national treasure get pushed off a pier for a punchline.
Charles Grodin: Deadpan and Disgusted
Charles Grodin is here, too, playing one of Wilder’s best friends and fellow philanderers. Grodin, who always looked like he was halfway through a migraine in every role, provides some welcome sarcasm, but even he can’t make this material sparkle. He delivers lines like he’s not just in on the joke—he’s also disgusted by it.
Which, frankly, makes him the most relatable person in the movie.
The Plot: A Thin Excuse for Male Delusion
The entire plot of The Woman in Red hinges on Wilder seeing LeBrock in a parking garage and deciding he must have her. That’s it. No emotional connection. No witty banter. Just lust at first sight, followed by 85 minutes of limp scheming, escalating mishaps, and some of the most awkward comedy sequences since the invention of the banana peel.
At one point, Wilder ends up in full drag, another moment involves a revolver, and yet another sequence features him hiding under a bed while LeBrock prepares to disrobe. It’s like Porky’s had a baby with Mad Men, and that baby went to a liberal arts college and got punched by life.
The climax (if you can call it that) involves Wilder finally making it to Charlotte’s apartment for a night of passion… only for it to fizzle out with a polite hug and the implication that he’s not up for the job anyway. It’s less “erotic comedy” and more “soft-focus reminder of erectile dysfunction.”
Tone: Sex Comedy Without the Sex or the Comedy
This movie wants to be a sophisticated adult comedy in the style of Blake Edwards, but it ends up feeling like a deleted sketch from SNL’s graveyard shift. The jokes are tired, the setups obvious, and the characters exist in a fantasy version of San Francisco where everyone is horny, rich, and emotionally stunted.
And while the film flirts with infidelity, it never commits—to the sex or the moral. It tries to be daring, but ends up folding like a paper napkin. You want it to go full farce, or at least have something honest to say about desire and regret. Instead, it’s content to leer awkwardly for 90 minutes and then pack up its shame.
Final Verdict: Red Dress, Red Flags
The Woman in Red is a cautionary tale disguised as a comedy. It’s about what happens when a man has everything—wife, job, decent suits—and still manages to be unsatisfied because he saw a hot woman in a parking garage. It’s not sexy, it’s not insightful, and it’s only occasionally funny, mostly when Gene Wilder accidentally falls off furniture.
The only thing that saves this movie from total oblivion is the presence of Kelly LeBrock, who glides through the mess like a goddess in a sea of polyester. She is, without question, a vision—and every scene she’s in feels like a lifeline to sanity. Too bad the rest of the movie is a confused mess of weak gags, bad mustaches, and sexual tension that would make a 7th-grade health class blush.
Rating: 3/10 — Watch it for Kelly LeBrock. Then turn it off.
