Vivian (Jane Fonda) has been a single, wild, capitalist for forty years. She owns a trendy hotel in Beverly Hills, yet her Stanford roommate, Sharon (Candice Bergen) grew up to become a federal judge. Unlike Vivian, Sharon has not had sex in eighteen years. Her ex husband (Ed Begley Jr.) left her for the cliché younger blonde. Carol (Mary Steenburgen) was a once a young waitress who put herself through culinary school, before cashing it all in to marry Bruce (Craig T. Nelson). And finally, there’s Diane (Diane Keaton) a recent widow and the mother of two grown daughters who thinks she should be in assisted living.
The four haven’t much in common except for fine chardonnay and a book club. But their tired of memoirs like Wild – she hiked, she lost her boots, she does heroin. No, Vivian (Fonda) thinks its time they revved it up a bit with some ‘Christian Grey.’ Fifty-million people can’t be wrong.
The four read, they highlight, they ‘ew and ahhhh’ their way through the spankings, until finally, they un-cuff and unleash their own inner naughty selves.
Vivian runs into her old beau (Don Johnson), while Diane falls for a pilot (Andy Garcia) and the plot is somehow reminiscent of her role in Something’s Gotta Give. Carol is determined to pump up the volume by giving Bruce some Viagra, but it’s Bergen who steals the show when she ditches nights with [Ruth Bader] ‘Ginsburg’ her White Persian pussycat, to cruise the Bumble website for a date. Enter Richard Dreyfus and Wallace Shawn. Enter trouble.
Fonda and Keaton can’t seem to move out of their cast-types. Fonda (as with Netflix Grace and Frankie) is tightly wound and overly done up. The killer makeup is beginning to wear in her later-in-years life. How refreshing might it be to classic it up a bit like Jackie O. Perhaps minimum makeup and hair elegantly pulled back in a bun instead of squeezing her sixty year old hot self into an eighty year old body. But it ain’t happening in her lifetime, and neither is Keaton’s ‘Annie Hall’ look of black/white, Capone style, scarfs, turtlenecks and fedora hats. So it’s Candice Bergen who is the most refreshing. Her authentic self takes on old age with aplomb. Touche to Steenburgen,too.)
The plot neatly ties up a Love, Actually vignette-style ending with a big red bow. Overall it delivers a laugh-out-loud very sweet film. Bring all the elderly females in your family. They won’t forget this theatre outing anytime soon.
We’re never too old to find love. It turns out that love is just a word until someone gives it true meaning. 3 ½ tiaras