FOLLOW-UP TO: "Book Club" (Movie #3,472)
AFTER: It hasn't been EXACTLY four years since I watched "Book Club", I'm about four days shy of that - but it was in early March of 2020, and so much has changed since then. I was carrying on a March Marriage Madness Tournament back then, and Wallace Shawn carried over from "Marriage Story". Also, Max von Sydow had just passed away, and the women in the movie "Book Club" were all reading "50 Shades of Grey", those horny old ladies.
This film takes the characters through the pandemic, and there's a hint that they got together online by zoom calls to discuss the books they were all reading at the same time. But come on, by now it's not really about the books any more, it's about these older women trying to live their best lives - we also see some of the activities and hobbies they picked up during lockdown, like one learned to play the accordion (like the kid in "Whatever it Takes", that instrument is HOT this year...) and another adopted a rescue parrot, which I don't think is really a thing, and they probably drank a lot, I'm honestly surprised we didn't see them all baking sourdough bread. But one banged her pans every night for the health care workers, remember that? Too bad the health care workers were all too busy working to hear it.
Oh, the first 10 minutes of this film were absolutely painful, as these four women get back together and then discuss whether they should all take a trip to Italy together, now that the travel restrictions are lifted. One can't go because she just got engaged, so would that be right? Another can't go because she's worried about her cat, this one has some other lame excuse - look, can we move this film along, please? At this point I don't care whether you all go to Italy or not just PLEASE stop debating it back and forth - go or don't go, just SHUT UP. Why did some screenwriter sit down and say, "I know, I'll make a movie about four women who can't decide whether to take a trip or not..." We KNOW they're going to go, so let's just get there, for the love of God. Thankfully Sharon's cat dies and we can move on - the poor cat probably just really wanted to get out of this movie so it committed suicide.
Anyway, the four women have all recently read "The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho, and that ties in to their trip somehow, but nobody really gives a damn so they never explain how, thanks for that. It would have only slowed things down further, and we're already running late, so let's get on the damn plane already. Three of the women say goodbye to their husbands or boyfriends, the retired judge buries the cat and finally, we're off. (It has, however, been exactly one year since I watched "When in Rome", another romance film that was set in Italy.)
It's a destination bachelorette party that starts in Rome and is supposed to end a week later in Tuscany - only Vivian hears great things about Venice from a street artist and so she impulsively decides they should go there because it's a great "walking city". Umm, swimming, maybe, but really, is it that great for walking? And even so, is that really the BEST reason to go there? Canals, gondolas, cathedrals, museums, sure, but WALKING? Old people are weird like that, I guess. Problems ensue when the four women give their luggage to porters at the Rome train station, and those porters turn out to be not employees of the train station, but thieves who stand around in uniforms collecting luggage from people who THINK they are porters. You might think that the train station might take steps to discourage these thieves from hanging around and stealing stuff, but then we wouldn't have such an unlikely travel complication in this movie, would we? So the girls are left with no changes of clothes, just VIvian's wedding dress and the money in Sharon's fanny-pack. And somehow magically nobody got their passport or other IDs stolen, or their wallets or credit cards. Really, was this plot point even necessary then, or was it just put here to justify why these women needed to do so much shopping in Italy?
There's some romance along the way, as the four encounter a dashing man in a bar who takes them to a cooking school for an elegant dinner, the chef recognizes Carol as the woman he loved many years ago when she studied the culinary arts there, and also Sharon fools around with the dashing man they met in the bar. Seniors having sex on vacation, not sure how to feel about that, they really seem a bit old for this, they could break a hip, after all. Actually Carol doesn't cheat on her husband with Chef Gianni, what they do together all night is a bit more humorous, I won't spoil it here - but there was definitely an attraction between them, and since Carol's husband Bruce was recovering from a heart attack, I wondered if he'd make it to the end of the movie, possibly freeing Carol to get back with her Italian chef ex.
The four women rent a car and then finally head out for Tuscany, there's a reason why the three other women demand that they stick to the original plan, and it's not too hard to figure out what it is. Diane's horrible at keeping a secret anyway and just blurts it out, they've arranged for the Destination Bachelorette Party to turn into a Destination Wedding, and all the characters are reunited there, after the requisite trip to jail first, which follows the hilarious (?) misunderstanding with the Italian police. Like all Hollywood wedding films, there's drama over whether the couple will actually get married or not, but at least here this is not regarded as a failure if they don't, it's more of a celebration that they didn't conform to society's overly rigid demand that wedding is a permanent social construct, and more true to the characters if they're allowed to make their own relationship rules, which is fine. But then another couple gets married on the spot, with no paperwork, no license and in a foreign country, so there's just no way that marriage is legal, either. Why do screenwriters, across the board, have such poor understanding about how weddings work?
I might have enjoyed this film more if the dialogue didn't belabor EVERY. SINGLE. POINT. Plot progress was definitely slow, and there was vacillation at every possible opportunity - or is that just what happens when you get four older women together and they can't decide on anything, so they look for "signs" about whether they're on the "right track" or not in their lives? God, there's really nothing more laborious then old women trying to figure out what every little thing MEANS. Gee-zus, you're on vacation, did you ever consider just trying to relax and have fun at some point? What a bunch of buzz-kills.
Coming up in a few more years will be "Book Club: The Appendix" as these four women break out of the nursing home and drive across America, looking for the original pieces of Jane Fonda's character's face.
Also starring Diane Keaton (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Jane Fonda (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Candice Bergen (last seen in "Book Club"), Andy Garcia (last seen in "The Mean Season"), Don Johnson (last seen in "Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool"), Craig T. Nelson (last seen in "The Company Men"), Giancarlo Giannini (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"), Hugh Quarshie (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), Vincent Riotta (last seen in "Tár"), Giovanni Esposito (last seen in "To Rome with Love"), Giampiero Judica (last seen in "All the Money in the World"), Vera Dragone, Ugo Dighero, Brice Martinet, Francesco Serpico, Robert Steiner, Grace Truly, Andrea Beruatto.
RATING: 4 out of 10 naked marble statues
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