The four female leads include Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen, and Candace Bergen. Their body of terrific work over five decades is extraordinary. They appear as members of their own little book club and have been lifelong friends. While this foursome is the focus of the movie they each have one or more male counterparts who provide great fodder for an entertaining few hours.
They include Don Johnson as Fonda’s fourty years ago paramour, Andy Garcia who stumbles upon adorable Keaton on a flight, Craig T. Nelson as Steenbergen’s recently retired husband who’s lost that lovin’ feeling and the wonderful Richard Dreyfus who appears briefly as Bergen’s online date.
The ladies have chosen “Fifty Shades of Gray” as their book club trilogy and it amply provides the backdrop for lots of laughs. As an aside, in the middle of the movie a female patron got up from her seat to ostensibly visit the rest room but she opened the side exit to the outdoors! The audience howled and I think she almost passed out.
The movie is full of laughs with only a few bits that miss the mark. When you have an ensemble cast of this caliber the acting is bound to be solid and it is.
As I watched, it occurred to me that I am a solid contemporary of several of the performers to include Keaton, Bergen, Dreyfus and Johnson. Fonda has ten years or more on all of them (and me)! I still have big issues with her foolish display way back when in Hanoi sitting behind enemy weaponry, but I can’t argue with her talent and her incredible work in films like “Klute”, “Barefoot in the Park”, “Coming Home”, “On Golden Pond” and many more.
I grew up with this cast and seeing them all on screen in a two hour session brought back memories of “Goodbye Girl”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “Annie Hall”, “Godfather I and II, “Coach”, “Miami Vice”, and “Melvin and Howard” and many, many more.
While it is highly unlikely that this film will vie for any Oscars it will not disappoint, especially with those early baby boomers who are still growing up with me.
