The female senior readers of the 50 Shades series are statistically its smallest group, yet in Book Club they are fantasized as the most titillated. Book Club has Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, as Shade virgins. Collectively, the quad are probably the group with the most on screen sexual experience. They all, at one time, have played prostitutes, faithful and cheating wives, done straight and kinky sex, been abused, amused, confused and even found true love with the perfect man.
In Book Club the four get stuck playing the characters they have spent their careers running away from: Fonda the sexual liberator, Keaton the Annie Hall ingenue, Steenburgen the passion deprived spouse, Bergen the career woman. Seeing them revive their best roles is suppose to be invigorating, but gets exhausting when half way through they lose the passion and pretense.
The men are stuck in the same stereotypical hell. The movie never has a chance to be steamy when everyone in it is running out of steam. It is never funny because no one cares to setup the tired punchline.
Book Club is a mess because it has the women wanting Viagra in their lives and getting only Geritol.
Leave a Reply