- Network: Starz
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 13, 2024
Critic Reviews
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There is plenty more sexual violence in this show, but no one here is defined by the trauma they experience. Three Women instead focuses on how these women respond, their resilience, and the work they do to better their lives (and maybe—just maybe—those of the people around them).
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Three Women is fascinating to watch, in parts, and had the whole show been structured differently, as a straight anthology perhaps or a series of TV movies that allowed each woman’s arc to stand on its own, its source material would be better served.
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Even after 10 episodes, both the author and her onscreen avatar are struggling to find a through line for each of these four tales. In hindsight, maybe just focusing on one would have worked better for TV. [Sep 2024, p.77]
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Buried under all the plot contortions and surplus extensions of “Three Women” are many beautiful, moving observations. If only it was easier to see them.
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There's a version of Three Women that trusts itself and its audience enough to tie the characters' stories together in a way that isn't quite so literal. Maybe someday we'll get it.
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Despite bold performances and sensitive directing that centers women’s subjective experiences of sex and their bodies, the show’s disjointed structure and flimsy frame narrative suggest that the book might not have been so ripe for TV after all.
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Some will likely feel seen in these stories and somewhat empathize with the characters' deep-seated fantasies. However, overplayed sex scenes and jumping back and forth between various points of view undercut the series' positives.
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Three Women might have worked better as an anthology, but in its current format, it has too many superfluous elements and not enough actual drama.
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Gilpin adds some well-needed life to a series that is, at times, devoid of it. The transformation Lina goes through is enough to make this series feel worthwhile for a time, but each time she leaves the screen–and the other characters take her place–it feels as if the soul of “Three Women” is missing.
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Somewhere around 30 to 40 percent of Three Women is an incisive, multifaceted portrait of female desire. The rest whips itself into a memoirist’s frenzy.
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It’s a show that’s packed — overflowing? — with solid performances, plus one or two great ones, as well as one with earnest and valid observations on female agency, female desire and the power of female storytelling. But despite ample handholding throughout, Three Women only occasionally comes together on an episodic level, much less as a dramatically unified whole.