Formerly known as Love And Other Impossible Pursuits, The Other Women bows into a couple theatres this weekend after being available on Video On Demand since the start of the year.

– Let’s start with some really big praise from Richard Corliss from Time Magazine, who was one of the critics who didn’t fall for Black Swan.

Tahan’s collaboration helps Portman achieve a rare intimacy with the audience in what may be her subtlest and most beguiling performance yet. I won’t say the O word, but when she gets on stage to accept her Academy Award, I’ll be thinking of The Other Woman, not Black Swan, as the work she should be proudest of.

– A.O Scott from the NY Times, also has praise for Natalie but fell more on the mixed-to-negative side of the fence.

“The Other Woman” is absorbing — at times moving — but also frustrating, relying as it does on slackly staged, overacted, two-person scenes punctuated by uninspired New York montages.

– NPR is also quite positive, although I thought Rabbit Hole was exceptional so I’m not sure I’d be on the same page as this reviewer.

Had Black Swan not screeched its way to an undeserved Oscar nomination, we might never have seen The Other Woman, Natalie Portman’s 2009 performance as a second wife haunted by the loss of a newborn and the weight of a terrible secret. That would have been a shame; if your limit on bereavement movies is only one per annum, skip the overpraised Rabbit Hole and see this one instead.

– Finally, the AV Club take us back to more negative territory with their brief review.

The Other Woman is often touching and believable in the way it shows people trying to recover from tragedy and get back to normal. But that’s such a small, fragile notion to dramatize, and The Other Woman is so full of incident and conflict that it loses track of what it’s supposed to be about.