Mary Steenburgen, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton and Candice Bergen in Book Club: The Next Chapter. Photo / Supplied
Mary Steenburgen, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton and Candice Bergen in Book Club: The Next Chapter. Photo / Supplied
The last time the book club of Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen convened, their characters found reading Fifty Shades of Grey a life-changing experience. This time, the quartet race off to Italy on a bachelorette trip inspired by Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist.
No, the bookdoesn’t go there, but its theme of “finding one’s destiny” runs artlessly throughout this tried and tested tale of a group of older women discovering their true selves abroad.
Keaton remains ditzy as Diane; Fonda vamps it up as the newly engaged Vivian; Bergen’s dry delivery as retired judge Sharon is a highlight; Steenburgen’s sweet Carol is so anxious that husband Bruce might drop dead it threatens to ruin the trip.
The four well-heeled tourists get chatted up, conned and reconnect with who they once were, as well as who they’re meant to be.
Returning director Bill Holderman is to blame for a longwinded script that is only intermittently funny: when erstwhile good-time gal Vivian considers getting married in a church, she winces, “Hope they don’t run a background check”, and thanks to Bergen, all of Sharon’s lines land with the zing that made Murphy Brown a two-decade hit.
But unless you enjoy Fonda spouting double entendres, for the most part, the film is lighthearted but not laugh-out-loud.
Neither does this chapter aim for poignancy. These BFFs are pretty happy in their lives and their decades-long friendship, and it seems that when Holderman wrote in the old paramours and new lovers who turn up in act two, he forgot to include the drama, misunderstandings and romantic realisations that are the staple of coming-of-older-age movies.
It’s not fresh and it’s not particularly clever, but if you want a no-strings-attached trip to a fantasy land with a gang of feisty seventy- and eighty-somethings, Book Club: The Next Chapter does what it says on the poster.
