Book Club (2018)

Film: Book Club (2018)
Stars: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Richard Dreyfuss, Andy Garcia, Don Johnson
Director: Bill Holderman
Oscar History: It's not that kind of movie.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

4 Oscars, 6 Emmys, and 12 Golden Globes.  If we go to the nominations, it's 13, 16, and 39, respectively.  The women of Book Club have created so many film and television memories through the years, honestly, they could have filmed their actual book club and I would have shown up to watch it.  This seems to be the attitude of most of the people I follow on Twitter, who were thrilled to be attending Book Club even if it didn't actually look any good.  The fact that it got made at all is interesting, and proof, perhaps, of Hollywood having missed the boat a bit when it comes to counter-programming.  Book Club is a genuine hit at this point, and proves that you don't have to have an English accent to storm the box office against blockbuster giants (these four women's British contemporaries like Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and Maggie Smith regularly get to lead their own summer comedies).  That said, this is a film review, and it's important for me not to just ask "is this fun?" but also "is this good?"

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around four lifelong friends: Diane (Keaton), Vivian (Fonda), Sharon (Bergen), and Carol (Steenburgen) who get together every single month to read a book, and because Hollywood demands we have to have a hook in order for four beautiful older women to talk about sex & relationships, the book club pick is Fifty Shades of Grey.  Thankfully this isn't a huge part of the film itself (only Steenburgen seems to indulge a bit in EL James erotica, and that's less central to her subplot than the trailers would suggest), as it would feel a bit ageist to have a bunch of worldly women focus entirely on being shocked by S&M, but it is indicative of the pretty uninspired thinking that screenwriters Bill Holderman and Erin Simms bring to this movie.  For it has to be said-Book Club, for all of the promise of its legendary stars, is not very good.

The film's central problem lies in it being too predictable, and feeling a bit too much like an original movie you'd catch on cable (in many ways it reminded me of Wild Oats from a few years back, which premiered on Lifetime).  There's nothing unique or special happening here.  Candice Bergen is the only person doing something original here, and the only character whose story I wanted to learn more about as the film progressed.  Bergen breathes life into her character, a stately judge who is trying to start dating again, and finds at least some under-explored facets of aging; watching her ex-husband introduce "the love of his life" is a cruel scene, particularly when you consider that he's not meeting some harlot, but instead a genuinely nice younger woman.  There's also the frayed dynamic between her son, who is clearly more like his dad than his mother, and herself, and the way that Bergen tips her hand that she needed to be a more absent mother in order to have her successful career, and the resentment that builds from such a decision.  That's great stuff, and while heavy for a comedy, Bergen makes it work.  The rest of the cast, though, doesn't have that luxury and doesn't expand their characters beyond two dimensions.

Fonda, for example, is phoning in her role as a sexy nymph who let a man get away-she could do this in her sleep.  Keaton's performance as a mother rediscovering love is the same role she's been playing for twenty years.  It would have been genuinely interesting if they had messed around with these parts, for example, and not had them play their own public persona (imagine Fonda as the neurotic mother or Keaton as the lusty single gal), but that's not really what people are buying tickets for; like the Dench/Smith films, they want to see the star they know-and-love, and they don't want them to stretch too much.  As a result, this is a film that feels instantly disposable, which is a damned shame as these actors are too talented to discard.