‘I absolutely, utterly and completely loathed this film’
Book Club (M,103 mins) Directed by Bill Holderman Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett. No stars
In Beverly Hills, four successful women get together once a month to discuss a novel they have read in the previous couple of weeks.
They knock back a few chardonnays, have a laugh and agree to disagree on their takes of the book.
One of the group is a hotel magnate, one owns a bakery, one is a judge, and one is a widowed retiree with a couple of daughters who want to move her to Arizona to be closer ‘‘when you slip and fall over’’.
Half-a-decade after the rest of the western world had a moment in the zeitgeist over whether Fifty Shades of Grey is a readable book, our quartet are introduced to it and promptly lose their collective minds over the contents.
Jane Fonda’s still-on-Tinder Vivian assumes leadership of the wahine, and the other three – with varying degrees of conviction – agree to do whatever it takes to revive their sex lives, which are all somewhere on a spectrum from critically endangered to presumedextinct.
And it’s here this review becomes nettlesome. I absolutely, utterly and completely loathed this film.
I sat in my seat about as willingly as I do at the dentist, counting down the moments and wondering whether or not to play the once-a-year ‘‘and then I walked out’’ card that I grant myself.
Book Club plays like a Gold Card-carrying version of Sex and the City, but without a skerrick of the TV show’s rebelliousness, freshness and refusal to conform to expectations, but all of the spin-off movies’ tiredness and cynicism left intact.
And I say this not just as a male who couldn’t possibly be expected to appreciate this film, but also as the grown son of a woman who was exactly the audience – divorced, widely-read, great sense of humour – Book Club must be aimed at.
And my beloved Mum would have loathed every benighted second of it as well.
But – and it’s an almighty big but – I saw this film in a half-full theatre on a warm night in Los Angeles, only a few kilometres away from where it was set.
And I would be lying to you if I pretended the rest of the audience weren’t enjoying the film immensely.
Between them, Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen have had major roles in creating Klute, Annie Hall, Reds, Manhattan and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape – and all played their part in driving the sexual and social revolution of the 1960s and 70s.
I can’t understand why they would submit to appearing as little more than avatars of living, breathing women in this lukewarm, disposable and deeply patronising drivel. But there are several people in the world who seem to be glad they did.
I’ve been at this gig a while now, and I figure I’ll keep dancing until they shoot me. In the past few years I’ve given a hopefully fair review to a bunch of films I was never in the intended audience for – from Magic Mike to Mamma Mia!, The Smurfs and (yes) Fifty Shades – I’ve tried to put myself in the shoes of the people who actually wanted to see the film, then tried to convey whether it was worth the price of the car park and the popcorn.
That’s all I do. I’m not a ‘‘critic’’ – anyone who says they are in this country is a bloviating numpty – I’m just someone who tries to stop you wasting your hard-earned, and occasionally points you at a film you might not otherwise be considering.
But once in a while I think it’s only proper to admit defeat. And this time I know I’m beaten. If you want to see Book Club then fair play to you. Apparently you may well enjoy it. I truly have no idea why.