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MOVIE REVIEW: Book Club

Garth Cremona (RIP)

Comedy drama starring Jane Fonda, Diane Lane, Mary Steenburgen, and Candice Bergen.  Four lifelong friends meet once a month for forty years to read a book and keep their friendship going.  When Jane Fonda has the choice of book she picks 50 Shades of Grey, probably one of the worst written books in history, and this lights fires within each of them.

I want to get this out-of-the-way now, there is one scene which bothers me more than anything, and if the roles were reversed and the man did this to the woman, we’d all be blacklisting this movie.  At least we would if were honest.  Mary Steenburgen is married to Craig T Nelson, and they have gone from hot and heavy in the bed room to going through what they would call a long dry spell.  She tries to ignite the embers of the fires within her Husband by dressing more seductively but it doesn’t work.  Finally Jane Fonda gives her some Viagra and tells her to pop a pill in his drink, which she does, unknown to the man.  If this was done the other way around, Craig being the wanting party and Mary holding out, and he slipped her a drug so they could make love, we’d not be reading this review.  To suggest that ANY party in a relationship has the right to drug the other in order to have sex is 100% wrong, you don’t get away with it because it’s a chick flick, you just don’t.

But the film has other problems which cannot be ignored either.  The characters are all set up at the start of the film, and we’re told that they are all intelligent and sophisticated career/family driven women.  Then a few minutes after the introductions they show they are anything but.  I can see mature women reading the 50 Shades book, but for these intelligent women to be so affected, it’s insulting to the audience.

A storyline where recently widowed Diane Lane is being harassed by her grown daughters to move closer to them and they are going hard on her to join them in a different state is just moronic to say the least.  When she meets pilot Andy Garcia and falls for him they suddenly forget why they wanted her to move and are fine with her going away with him.

This is a film that is targeted to a woman of a certain age, it’s great to see this cast on-screen, and you have hope that it’s going to be entertaining, but in the end it’s insulting.  If you get the audience drunk enough I guess you’ll have a good time, and it’s going to do well on home release as some people will buy a copy, without seeing the film, for the mature family members in their life because of the cast.  I don’t think I laughed once during the film.  I’m going to leave this review there as I tire of flogging a dead horse and it’s a shame the writers of the film couldn’t say the same.  We all deserve better.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Director: Bill Holderman
Writers: Bill Holderman, Erin Simms
Stars: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen & more….. See full cast & crew

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Garth Cremona (RIP)
Comic book creator and movie reviewer. You can find out more at www.dublinwriter.com
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