Book Club (2018)

Book Club (2018)

6/10

Starring

Diane Keaton

Jane Fonda

Candice Bergen

Mary Steenburgen

Directed by Bill Holderman

Book Club is not one of the coolest movies to see, in fact I feel the script was somewhat cagey so as not to turn out to be creepy. The veteran actresses had their job cut our for them to bring this not so lively script to life and I have to admit that they did. Writer and director Bill Holderman’s decision not to swing hard on this script was not for me the best decision. He could have added some unexpected creepiness to the movie for the comedy, I feel it would have worked. He kept the movie clean and simple and the veteran actresses had to do the heavy lifting to make the movie good enough to see.

All praises go to ladies who took the bull by the horn in this movie, all of them looked stunning and they moved about confident onscreen. They have been in the business long enough to know what works and what doesn’t and they gave us all of what works to make this movie fun to see in the end.

Book club is a nice movie with an amazing cast of cool four ladies. The oldest at the time of release Jane Fonda (80) she plays Vivian, a woman who runs her own company. She is rich, successful and has sex with whomever she wants. Downside to her is she is afraid of commitment. With Fonda we had Diane Keaton (72) she plays Diane, a widower whose husband died a year before leaving her with herself and two grown daughters who have a families of their own. Diane is allowing her daughters to control her life. Then there is Candice Bergen (72) she plays Sharon, a federal judge who is divorced and has allowed the divorce to make her stay away from all sexual relationships for eighteen years. The last but not least is Mary Steenburgen (65) who plays Carol, she is the only one still married and she and her husband are going through a dark path sexually.

The four women whose ages in this movie are not said (or maybe I missed it) have bonded over the years and have formed a book club. Things changed in their lives when the book they had to read was Fifty Shades of Grey. The BDSM sexual book woke up something inside all of them. At this point I liked the way the movie did not become overwhelmingly creepy, but I expected some creepiness. I thought that was a comedic door waiting to be opened which like I said above the director did not dare to venture. Although something was awoken in them, it was not to go and do some weird sexual thing. But for them to all break away from their slumps or downside in life and do something daring.

The acting from the four ladies is magnificent and for more than five decades these ladies have been onscreen giving us fantastic performances one after another. Their performance here is worth all the praises. The movie was a huge box office splash, making over $104 million on a $14 million budget.

I like the way the movie coasted to the end and makes you want to be daring in life now and have it in mind to continue to be daring even when you reach the ripe graceful age of the ladies.