Review of Book Club (2018) by Alan W — 05 Jun 2018

With four beloved, if not iconic, actresses from the 70s & 80s starring as lifelong friends, with differing marital statuses that cover the spectrum, who meet to drink and talk sex under the guise of their Book Club, this film has the potential to be a Nora Ephron-esque romcom, crossing Sex and the City with Golden Girls, so it's a shame it turns out so formulaic and stale, and mostly coasting on the charms of its leading ladies.

For every fresh and inspired Werner Herzog joke, there are two groan-inducingly unsubtle ones about a lethargic pussy that date back to Are You Being Served? - exposing an outdated perspective on the sex and love lives for the successful mature women in a film whose idea of risqué and sexual awakening is to read Fifty Shades of Grey.

Stitching together four one-dimensional stories into this movie, it reminds me of Rob Reiner's festive themed portmanteau extravaganzas where Oscar winners and TV stars participate for a quick cash in.

Whilst not as disastrously bad as them, it remains mostly a lacklustre affair, that's further underlined by its forced and lazily written happy endings. Diane Keaton feels strangely stilted, while Candice Bergen and Jane Fonda act like they know they are better than the material they are given.

(Well, at least someone noticed!) Meanwhile, Mary Steenburgen does her best with an unoriginal storyline about a sexually frustrated wife that predictably ends with Viagra-related hilarity. Or not. As a Murphy Brown/Back to the Future III/9 to 5/Annie Hall fan, I'm thrilled to see these talents back on the big screen, but it's also terribly disappointing to see such an amazing cast and the chemistry they have with each other (and their male co-stars) squandered on something so pedestrian and unimaginative.