Book Club: The Next Chapter

I don't see how this film could be much worse, and it saddens me to watch four of the most talented, dynamic, personable female actors of their generation in this cringeworthy mess. Lame jokes about being old, silly and non-romance (I celebrate any well done late-life love story, but come on!), cliche upon cliche and basically phoned-in performances all around. Sorry to be so negative, but these women deserve better, beginning with a better script. I couldn't bear to watch all the way through, so I will hope that somehow I am wrong and just stopped watching too soon. The first Book Club movie was entertaining, and I thought the characters were interesting and funny, but this one left me cold.

I waited for this movie with great anticipation. The actors have done fine work in the past, and the previous Book Club movie was nicely done.

But this Book Club: The Next Chapter is so flimsy it is embarrassing, mainly to women in general. As if women live in a world of teenage dreams and have no way of solidifying their identity without resorting to superficial concerns and external validations.

For instance, the constant emphasis on clothes, or on how men love or do not love the women, or on the ideal, magical trip that is supposed to liberate you, or on what the fates want for you, or on what signs you are being given about your "destiny" - all this is just so tiresome and empty.

The characters never seemed to be concerned about anything except their own private selves.

And the ending was preposterous. It made the women seem as if they were completely inconsistent.

Diane (Diane Keaton), Vivian (Jane Fonda), Sharon (Candice Bergen), and Carol (Mary Steenburgen) are the best of friends. They are meeting in person for the first time since the isolation of the pandemic. They decide to go to Italy.

I'm fine with the first movie. It's fine. Don't ask me to watch a sequel. Yet here we are. I don't begrudge anyone from doing a honest day's work, but this one is a classic Adam Sandler move. Sandler often gets a bunch of his friends and makes a movie at some exotic resort location. There's a lot of that here. The writing is boring. I stopped caring about these characters. Maybe they'll stop making these although I can see a way to make the next one interesting.

Book Club: The Next Chapter is a film so lazy it almost feels as if it were written by AI instead of living, breathing human beings. It's got plenty of zingers and the cast tries their best to deliver them as best they can, but even the finest thespians in the world can't make this dialogue sound realistic. The story is non-existent as the four lead characters go from tourist spot to tourist spot, drinking wine, telling corny sex jokes, and offering up cliche proverbs about friendship that are so stale and tired that they're gag inducing. The first film was no fine masterpiece, but it at least had a little more substance to it. This is simply a waste of a fine cast, but I hope they enjoyed their trip to Italy.

This appears to be a good excuse for four actors, who seem to get on quite well together, to get someone to fund an all expenses paid trip to Italy to make a movie underpinned by the thinnest of plots. That plot sees the group emerging from lockdown when they finally manage to meet for their routine bookclub. It's at this get-together that "Vivian" (Jane Fonda) announces that she - a lifelong opponent of the institution - is to marry "Arthur" (Don Johnson). "Carol" (Mary Steenbergen) comes up with the idea of a hen trip to Italy and after a bit of scepticism from "Diane" (Diane Keanton) and the timely death of the cat of judge "Sharon" (Candice Bergen) they embark on their trip of a lifetime. What now ensues is a rather predictable and lightweight comedy drama that starts off entertainingly enough but runs out of steam quickly and permanently. The last twenty minutes take us into cheesy territory that really did have me looking around the cinema at the ceiling thinking - "oh, just get on with it". There are a few fun contributions from Giancarlo Giannini as the rather dishevelled police chief and a few cameos from Andy Garcia, but for the most part this is just four folks having a jolly time whilst those of us sitting down remember (or discover) just how beautiful Venice is. It's all instantly forgettable stuff, this, but Bergen has her tongue firmly in her cheek and Jane Fonda just seems to look more android the more films she precariously totters through nowadays.