"Book Club"

 ☆☆ 

Here is a set of easy-to-follow instructions for anyone who is thinking about seeing Book Club:

1) Turn on your TV
2) Navigate to the search feature of your service provider
3) Type in the words "The Golden Girls"
4) Find any episode of that series, which ran from 1985 to 1992
5) Press play

Book Club is, by and large, a big-screen adaptation of that much-loved TV series, only without its wit, intelligence and charm. Instead of four mature women sharing a home in Florida, Book Club offers four mature women sharing a living room for a few hours once a month, where they drink wine at an alarming, borderline-alcoholic rate and talk about anything other than the book they've been reading.

The book club in the title is merely a plot device that brings together a tough-as-nails businesswoman (Jane Fonda), a wisecracking judge (Candice Bergen), a sexually frustrated housewife (Mary Steenburgen), and a slightly daffy widow (Diane Keaton). Allegedly they've been doing this once a month for 30 years, but there's little sense these characters know each other; these actresses, who together have more than a dozen Oscars or nominations between them, seem barely interested in the film. Their performances, like the movie itself, are flat and monotone, disconnected from reality.

After Jane Fonda's character proposes they read Fifty Shades of Gray, which is the cleverest idea in the movie (and it's not all that clever), the four women go their separate ways and the movie tells their individual stories, occasionally bringing them together to comment on what they've been doing. But it's a flimsy excuse for an even flimsier plot, a story without any purpose at all except to let these once-great actresses occasionally make a wisecrack, talk about sex, or do something that is intended to make us guffaw at how inept they are living in the world around them.

There's a sort of sadness to Book Club, when you think about it: None of the women seems capable of living a fulfilling life, even though they're in their 60s, 70s and 80s; they haven't figured out what makes them happy, or how they can find satisfaction in any way that doesn't involve having a man in her life.

The situations they're put in all have to do with men. Diane Keaton's ditzy la-di-da character, the kind she's been playing for 40 years, has a painfully awkward "meet-cute" with a man on a plane (Andy Garcia); he turns out to be a pilot and she falls for him and spends time at his sprawling ranch while her daughters worry she's so old that she's going to trip and fall and hurt herself.

Jane Fonda's no-nonsense hotel owner is completely in control of her life, except that the guy (Don Johnson) she dumped 40 years ago before they got married is still following her around, and Fonda is flummoxed by all the attention he's lavishing on her.

Mary Steenburgen is married to Craig T. Nelson, who doesn't have sex with her anymore, so she goes to embarrassing lengths to find ways to arouse him, and their whole story is about unused penises and vaginas, because this is a movie in which the words "penis" and "vagina" can be uttered without feeling infantile, except that every time one of those words is mentioned it sounds infantile.

Candice Bergen is the judge, and she has let her body go because she doesn't have a man, and spends all day, whether in her chambers or at home, sorting through dating sites and going on random dates with men played in single-scene cameo appearances by Richard Dreyfuss and Wallace Shawn.

This almost completely charmless film flits back and forth between the four individual stories, but there's no connecting fiber, no sense that these people know and care about each other for any reason other than that the script requires it. This isn't like "The Golden Girls" or the Jane Fonda-Lily Tomlin series "Grace and Frankie," where you get the feeling that these people really are friends who know what makes the other tick. In this movie, they're just stereotypes that keep running into each other now and then and having giggly talks about sex like they're doing a junior-high sleepover.

Did someone think Book Club was saying something meaningful about aging or romance or feminism? Did they think Book Club would help illuminate some aspect of the lives of people over 60? I have to imagine they thought they did, because they couldn't have thought it was funny.

That's not to say there aren't a few laughs in the movie -- the best moment is when Mary Steenburgen reveals how infrequently she and her husband have sex; the line about rabbits and Benadryl almost makes up for the rest of the movie. Almost.

But the way it's written, the way its acted and mostly the way its shot -- like a TV commercial for a blood-pressure medicine, or an HGTV series about decorating a house to look like a model home -- infuse it with a bland mediocrity. There's just nothing appealing about these women or their alleged predicaments: In the 21st century, couldn't there be a crisis faced by an older woman that doesn't involve finding a suitable man?

There are so few films, especially during the summer season, made for an adult audience that I want to praise Book Club at least on that level, but it's such a dull and lifeless film that it's impossible to do that; it's few good jokes aren't on their own worth the price of admission.

For incisive thoughts on aging and the difficulty of late-in-life romance, save yourself some money and watch a few episodes of "The Golden Girls." You'll gain way more insight into the issues faced by older women who are still active, vibrant and interesting, you'll get better storytelling, and you'll have way more fun.

Book Club can't even rise to the level of a bar that was set three decades ago. It's a painfully dull film, a series of vignettes that never lead anywhere, never explore the inner lives of its characters, and offers almost no insight into the struggles a 70-year-old woman faces in today's youth-obsessed world. All of that would be okay if only Book Club were funny.

But Book Club isn't funny. It's not, in the end, much of anything at all, except a reminder that there is no compelling reason ever to read Fifty Shades of Gray.



Viewed June 15, 2018 -- Pacific Sherman Oaks 5

2020