50 shades of grey power
A starry cast, a tale of late-life love... just a shame it’s based on THAT book
Book Club
TC ert: 12A 1hr 44mins ★★★★★
he starting point for Book Club is as wearying as it is depressing. ‘Ladies,’ purrs an improbably perky-looking Jane Fonda, clutching four copies of something horribly familiar to her bosom, ‘let me introduce you to Christian Grey…’
‘No-oooo,’ I wanted to scream, ‘not Fifty Shades Of Grey again… for goodness’ sake this is 2018, not 2012.’
But, of course, my silent scream could have no effect. Producer-turned-occasional-writer-and-director Bill Holderman had penned his screenplay and was directing it himself. There was no going back – Book Club really was going to be a film about four older women getting their sexual mojo back because they read EL James’s terrible book at their monthly book club. I could feel my spirits physically slumping.
Which is a shame because normally I like romantic comedies about late-life love – It’s Complicated and Something’s Gotta Give both spring enjoyably to mind – and I warm to a film that casts the classy likes of Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen as the four leads in a way that seems absolutely of this empowered #MeToo moment and rather poignant too. Or rather would be but for the Fifty Shades nonsense.
But slowly they find a way past this particular stumbling block, albeit in a way that never rises above a distinctly middle-brow, gentle giggle-along sort of way. Go with your expectations set suitably low and this is quite fun.
Along the steadily improving way, I came to the conclusion that Fonda – looking simply astonishing at 80 – has the best plastic surgeon (a joke in the screenplay suggests this is fair game), Keaton, at 72, has the best hair (goodness, the hours she must have spent with the straighteners), Bergen, also 72, is the gamest and funniest, while Steenburgen, at 65 very much the baby of the group, frankly still has time to make better films than this.
You can see Book Club as the female answer to male-led comedies such as the Hangover franchise and, particularly, Last Vegas, which saw four male seventysomethings heading for Las Vegas for one last bachelor party. Poor Steenburgen had the misfortune to be in that too. Or you can see it as a continuation of the women-behaving-badly trend that began with Bridesmaids, went on with Girls Trip and shows absolutely no sign of running out of steam any time soon.
But we mustn’t get carried away; Book Club is written and directed by a man and isn’t nearly as funny as either Bridesmaids or Girls Trip, both also directed by men, albeit from screenplays written by women. What Holderman delivers here is a highly episodic screenplay that shifts the narrative focus from one character to another to another while rarely bringing his multi-Academy Award-winning cast together as a whole. Which is a shame, because when they’re not banging on about Fifty Shades, that’s when they’re at their funniest. Instead, we have Fonda playing Vivian, a wealthy but commitment-
‘Steenburgen, at 65 very much the baby of the group, frankly still has time to make better films than this’
phobic hotel owner who’s being rather sweetly pursued by an old flame (Don Johnson, a mere 68), Keaton as the recently widowed Diane, who’s under pressure to move in with her grown-up daughter but catches the eye of a handsome, gravel-voiced pilot (Andy Garcia, only 62), and Bergen as Sharon, a long-divorced judge who hasn’t had sex for 18 years. Until, of course, she discovers Fifty Shades, internet dating and foundation underwear. As for the unfortunate Steenburgen, she’s Carol, a woman stuck in a marriage that has distinctly lost its va-va-voom. Goodness, you don’t think some va-va-Viagra might help? Yes, Book Club is that sort of film. But it does have its comic moments and an undeniable if sporadic charm. Fonda and Bergen, in particular, can still deliver a one-liner with effortless panache, and Keaton, while never straying from her familiar comfort zone, has the best story arc. Steenburgen’s reward for playing fourth fiddle should be a climactic dance scene but somehow, sadly (because I’m a big fan) even that doesn’t quite work. That Christian Grey has a lot to answer for.
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