Director: Bill Holderman
Writers: Bill Holderman and Erin Sims
Stars: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen
Synopsis: Follows the new journey of four best friends as they take their book club to Italy for the fun girls trip they never had.
2018’s Book Club was a pleasant surprise, but it worked because of the chemistry between its four leads. It was also very funny and delivered on the insane premise of four old ladies whose lives drastically change after they read Fifty Shades of Grey. Regardless, no one asked for a sequel, but it’s here anyways, and…it’s not very good. The truth of the matter is Book Club: The Next Chapter has virtually nothing of interest to say and is nomore than a series of unfunny situations that drag on for far too long as our lead characters, Diane (Diane Keaton), Vivian (Jane Fonda), Sharon (Candice Bergen) and Carol (Mary Steenburgen) go to Italy to celebrate Vivian’s engagement to Arthur (Don Johnson), after they rekindled their old love in the first film.
This will lead them to a series of unfunny platitudes, à la 80 for Brady. However, unlike that movie, which put its stars in plenty of funny situations, Book Club: The Next Chapter has little to offer. Director Bill Holderman and cinematographer Andrew Dunn forego the cinematic style of the last film and decide to shoot it in 1.85:1, giving it a glossy Hallmark look. Dunn’s last credit was for Jim Strouse’s Love Again, which was as Hallmark as it got. The shrill, string-heavy score from Tom Howe also doesn’t help. However, it accompanies most of the flat performances from its leads, which was the main reason why the first one worked in the first place.
I feel people underappreciate how funny Diane Keaton can be, and she certainly is the highlight of this film, once again. Keaton and Steenburgen share the funniest situations in the movie, and their comedic timing is spot-on. The cucina scene was the funniest part of the trailer and is even funnier in context. They seem like the two are actively having fun with the material, even if it is as uninspired as it may come and much less funnythan the first. As for Bergen and Fonda, they’re unfortunately not up to the same level as Keaton and Steenburgen. It is a shame, especially for Bergen, who was a significant highlight of the first movie, juggling between her stoic presence as a Federal Judge while also trying to appear more “hip” (as they say) around someone like George (Richard Dreyfuss) or Derek (Wallace Shawn).
Holderman seems to only give Bergen lines about her being old, which she consistently repeats for the entire runtime. If you liked the “I like cities that are falling apart more than I am” line because “haha, she’s old! Get it???,” you’ll probably like the movie because that’s the entire basis of its humor. I did enjoy her on-screen chemistry with Hugh Quarshie, who plays a philosopher whom the girls meet in Venice, and Giancarlo Giannini’s police officer, who recurrently appears and has a love-hate relationship with Sharon. Those elements were fun to watch, but they’re overshadowed by long, drawn-out scenes where our leads consistently “tempt fate” by living a successive series of one unfortunate event after the next. At some point, the schtick becomes tiresome because there’s no flow in how everything goes wrong…and then goes right…and goes wrong again.
The real kicker is the final scene, which I won’t spoil, which never seems to end. None of the supporting counterparts, played by Andy Garcia, Craig T. Nelson, and Johnson, have anything to do throughout the runtime (apart from an extremely painful scene in which Nelson’s Bruce cooks Bacon in secret while Carol is in Italy after he suffers a heart attack during COVID-19. This is apparently a key plot point that goes absolutely nowhere), so they cram them all into one very long and extremely dull scene, painful for everyone involved, even Keaton and Steenburgen who can’t seem to hold their own.
The result is a rather dull and monotonous affair that shouldn’t have been made. The first movie was such a fun time, with a great framing device, that all four leads could’ve reunited for something completely different. Instead, they decide to reunite for a COVID-era movie that is neither funny, nor watchable. Some will find light enjoyment in it, but it’s nowhere near as good as the first movie. At the end of the day, you will be in no hurry to finish Book Club: The Next Chapter and will probably want to put it down many times.
