Joyce Glasser reviews Book Club: The Next Chapter (May 12, 2023) Cert 12A, 108 mins. In Cinemas
For a man under fifty, director and co-writer Bill Holderman either has a curious fixation with his starry elders, or a realisation that there’s a lot of unused talent in LaLa Land going to waste. He co-produced A Walk in the Woods and The Old Man and the Gun, both with septuagenarian Robert Redford, and his first film as director was Book Club, in which four prosperous woman over 65 (with enough star power to light the Hollywood Sign), find inspiration in the novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Now he’s back with the sequel, or a next chapter, although books have little to do with the shambolic goings on when the ladies, with an average age of 77, enjoy a hen party in Italy.
There’s a line early on in Book Club where federal judge Sharon (Candice Bergen), objecting to Vivian’s (Jane Fonda) choice of the smutty Fifty Shades of Grey, protests, ‘we started this club to stimulate our minds.’ Well, that myth has been dispelled. Sharon, now retired, is the one who, the minute she arrives in Venice, picks up attractive, sophisticated Ousmane (Hugh Quarshie) in a bar and enjoys a one night stand in his houseboat. Maybe something of La Dolce Vita rubbed off on everyone when filming began at Rome’s Cinecitta Studios, because The Book Club: The Next Chapter, is a lot more fun and a lot funnier than the dire original.
A final zoom meeting is the sign that Covid is over and the friends can meet up. Their new book is Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, although the attentive reader will notice that for the duration of the story no one is caught reading a book. Self-made property millionaire Vivian (Fonda), who was living in the penthouse of one of her hotels last time we saw her, has news to announce.
During lockdown she was “stuck” living with Arthur (Don Johnson), the dream man she met in Book Club, for a record number of nights with no complaints. So, when Arthur proposed, the independent businesswoman accepted. Since all of the women are prosperous and relatively free, they decide to invade Italy for a hen-party.
Arthur gives his blessing, but Carol (Mary Steenburgen) is worried about leaving Bruce (Craig T Nelson), her recently-retired husband of many years. She worries about his diet, his blood pressure, his general health and what might happen without her. Bruce’s health has limited their romantic life of late, with Carol playing the self-imposed role of carer rather than wife. So when, in an incredible coincidence, the gals have dinner in Venice at the famed restaurant of Chef Gianni (Vincent Riotta), Carol’s former culinary school mentor, she is tempted. No spoilers here, other than to say there is serious flirting going on as the two pick up where they left off.
Hoberman, and co-writer Erin Simms, overdo the double-entendres, and to suggest sparks fly, the two chefs are heard grunting and laughing in the kitchen after hours. ‘I could do this all night,’ we hear, with the joke being they are happily kneading dough. If “pulling dough” is just a sexual metaphor, it’s still more fun for Carol than worrying about Bruce. Her confusing Bruce’s needs with her own insecurity is one of the “life lessons” that pack the film’s final act with some universal relationship therapy.
As the women head for sightseeing in Rome, wining and dining in Venice, and experiencing bucolic Tuscany, the filmmakers clearly want to rid themselves of logistics and the women of cumbersome luggage. They find a quasi-plausible and pretty funny way of doing so. The theft of their luggage also provides a link with the book club’s choice, The Alchemist. The friends remember the passage where the protagonist, Santiago, loses his things and can be a victim, or go on an adventure. These women don’t do “victim.” The adventure could be wilder, but Hoberman and Simms are heading in the right direction.
Part of the appeal of films such as Crazy Rich Asians is the lavish lifestyles on offer. Viewers might recall that when Diane meets a new man, it’s not just any man, but Mitchell (Andy García) with a site-specific mansion and swimming pool in Red Rock County, Sedona, a private plane, a generous nature and no litigious wife to ruin it all.
So being luggageless provides an opportunity for the friends to go shopping in Rome, particularly as they want to buy Vivian a designer wedding gown. (It’s worth noting that, model-thin Fonda is not promoting a new Workout but is working through a cancer diagnosis and being in remission).
The only thing that doesn’t ring true is that no woman over 60 who looks like Vivian and who is staying in a five star hotel, would not instantly replace the make-up and toiletries she lost or would never keep them with general luggage to begin with.
There are enough amusing situations and one liners to keep an age-diverse audience, assisted perhaps by a few cocktails, laughing almost from beginning to end. With the fab four standing on the Spanish Steps, we hear, ‘I love anything that’s falling apart more than I am’ and when their car breaks down on a deserted road in Tuscany and hitchhiking is proposed, Carol, deadpan adds, ‘in my limited experience, it helps if a car ever drives by.’ When, after hours of waiting, the only car to appear is a police car, Vivian, thinking the setup is part of the hen party, mistakes the young, sexy cop for a male stripper! They find free accommodation in a jail cell.
It is the chemistry between the four A-list actresses and their on and off screen camaraderie that invites you to overlook the awkward bits and join in the fun. There are ageless lessons to be learnt and Viv’s speech to her fiancé at their surprise wedding in Tuscany confirms that it is sometimes too late to change your lifestyle, or that there’s a reason for it to begin with. If Viv listens to her heart, Carol has to listen to Viv and “stop trying to control the uncontrollable.” Meanwhile, Mitchell proves he is marriage material when he buys Diane the Annie Hall type outfit she fell for in Rome, updating the maxim that you can take the woman out of the dress but you can’t take the dress out of the woman.
