BOOK CLUB

If you’re anything like me, straight out of the gate you'd be wondering why anyone would make a movie about a book whose hype peaked seven years ago. And to make matters worse, in the film the book they read just before attacking Mr Grey and his sexual proclivities, is ‘Wild’, yet anther book that scaled the charts six years ago. Good lord, these gals are behind the times. What’s next, ‘The Da Vinci Code’? I know, I know, I’m nit-picking. ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is simply the MacGuffin in this tale, but it just sets the film off on a bad note, making it so... irrelevant from the word go.

So, Diane (Diane Keaton, 'Hampstead', 'Love the Coopers', 'Annie Hall'), Vivian (Jane Fonda, Netflix's 'Grace and Frankie', 'This Is Where I Leave You', 'Barbarella'), Sharon (Candice Bergen, TV's 'Murphy Brown', 'Home Again') and Carol (Mary Steenburgen, TV's 'The Last Man on Earth' and 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', 'Back to the Future Part III') have all been best friends since college and also have a long-standing book club. This month, the perpetually single, highly successful, sexually vivacious Vivian (think the Samantha of the group) suggests ‘Fifty Shades a Grey’ in an effort to make the other women realise that while they are “old” they’re not dead, and are in desperate need of bringing the sex and passion back into their lives. Like a pair of magical jeans, this month’s book sees new men and ideas enter the women’s lives. Newly-widowed Diane meets pilot Mitchell (Andy Garcia, ‘Ocean’s Eleven’) and explores a new romance while balancing that with her overprotective daughters. Vivian reconnects with old flame/the one that got away, Arthur (Don Johnson, ‘The Other Woman’). Sharon experiments with online dating with varied success, and Carol tries desperately to reignite the flame between herself and her husband Bruce (Craig T. Nelsen, ‘Incredibles 2’).