Jocelyn Moorhouse’s The Fabulous Four is a collision of estranged friendships, botched wedding plans, and suspiciously potent edibles—all wrapped in pastel Florida chaos. If you’re looking for subtlety, keep moving. This film hits you with a glittery parasail and dares you to find depth beneath the sequins. Anchored by Bette Midler’s turbo-charged Marilyn and Susan Sarandon’s eternally put-upon Lou, the movie lurches through reconciliation, heartbreak, and a cat raffle scam with the energy of women who have seen worse and smoked better.
Marriage, in this film, is a social event barely more permanent than a TikTok story. Midler’s Marilyn proposes, plans, and nearly unravels an entire wedding in the time it takes Lou to detox from gummy-induced rage. It’s less a commentary on love and aging than an acknowledgment that people over sixty are still entangled in betrayal, nasty sex, and worse decisions. The wedding doesn’t collapse so much as quietly deflate—no one walks away married, but everyone gets closure. Sort of.
Friendship is where the film plants its heart, then pokes at it with a cocktail umbrella. Lou, Kitty, and Alice bring an unsteady rhythm of barbed affection and long-suffering loyalty, though the script often mistakes yelling for emotional honesty. Megan Mullally and Sheryl Lee Ralph get decent comic moments, but their roles suffer from being supporting satellites to the Midler-Sarandon orbit. Sarandon, always game, throws herself into the role of a woman dragged back into the social drama she never asked to rejoin. At the same time, Midler vacillates between dazzling and grating in equal measure.
The plot is a wildly decorated tourist trolley—fun in short stretches, prone to breakdowns, and somehow ends up where it meant to go. The whole cat raffle bait-and-switch? Genius. The parasailing scene? Unhinged. The TikTok subplot? We did not need it. Marilyn’s bachelorette party features her grandson as the stripper, and it is a bold swing. It lands with the exact sound of everyone at home clutching their wine glasses and whispering, “Did they just…?”
This movie is pure hit-and-miss. Some jokes land with comic timing you’d expect from this veteran cast; others die quietly, like a wedding speech at an open bar. The cannabis hijinks run a bit long, and the story often forgets which character we’re supposed to root for—Midler’s Marilyn is too erratic to be sympathetic. At the same time, Lou seems allergic to joy even when offered in edible form.
The themes—the ache of aging, the fractures of old friendship, the desire to be seen—are present but not deeply explored. The film gestures at emotion and often pulls back just before it gets interesting. Still, the fact that these women get to be complex, rude, funny, and visible on screen is something of a thematic triumph in itself.
Moorhouse’s direction keeps the pace lively enough, though never particularly graceful. It’s far from traditional sports films like A League of Their Own, where competition and camaraderie unfold with deeper stakes. The Fabulous Four is more of a comedy caper on anti-aging cream, with plot points flung like beach balls at a retirement resort talent show.
The cast is used well. Sarandon gets the richest emotional terrain, Midler brings the fireworks, and Timothy V. Murphy’s Captain Ernie is the relaxed Key West vibe we didn’t know we needed. Bruce Greenwood’s Ted/Bradley is charming if slightly undercooked. Mullally and Ralph deserve more screen time, but they squeeze every ounce of wit out of their lines.
In the end, the movie succeeds as an ensemble showcase for older women who are messy, loud, and emotionally unfiltered. It fails as a coherent tale. It stumbles in storytelling, lands occasional emotional punches, and leaves viewers both entertained and mildly exasperated. And yes, Michael Bolton makes a cameo—for absolutely no reason at all.
Grade: B. Streaming on Netflix.
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