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The BOOK CLUB is made up of Diane, Vivian, Sharon and Carol played by veteran stars Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda and Mary Steenburgen respectively, and listed in order of both their popularity and importance of their roles in the film. All four have had their hey day, Fonda with her Oscar Winning KLUTE, breaking into fame with CAT BALLOU (I have seen this film 7 times), Keaton with ANNIE HALL, REDS, Bergen with 11 HARROW HOUSE, THE HUNTING PARTY and SOLDIER BLUE and Steenburgen with CROSS CREEK and DEAD OF WINTER. Watching them on screen is the best thing about the film. Unfortunately, they are unable to save this sorry feminine old farts comedy.
The film’s premise is simple enough with the script stretching it into a tired full length feature. Four older women spend their lives attending a book club where they bond over the typical suggested literature. Each member takes her turn to suggest a book. One day, they end up reading Fifty Shades of Grey (with Christian Grey and his sexual frolics) and are turned on by the content. Viewing it as a wake up call, they decide to expand their lives and chase pleasures that have eluded them.
With four and not one character, the audiences has to sit through all four and not only one story as they sort out their lives.
When the club first meets, it is a long drawn out affair of introductions. One by one, they appear, each apparently trying to outdo each other in wardrobe and appearance. The dialogue is obviously written by a team of comedy writers (though only mildly funny). One liners and punch liners come out of the members’ mouths instead of authentic everyday dialogue.
Later on in the film, the audience sees Keaton wearing all her ANNIE HALL outfits from male jacket, to loose tie to beret. It is clear that the film pays more attention to wardrobe, the mansions with their interior design and stuff that make the elders look good that more urgent matters like script and direction. Choice of popular songs at appropriate parts of the film is ‘cute’ at best.
As the film progresses, it appears that this is a film that shows only one side of the American life – that of the wealthy. All the characters are white and wealthy, with for example, Diane’s boyfriend, Mitchell the pilot (Andy Garcia) owning a mansion with his own private plane or Vivian’s Arthur (Don Johnson) rich enough to miss airline flights at a whim. Even the supposedly middle class couple Carol (Steenburgen) and Bruce (POLTERGEIST’s Craig T. Nelson) has a house to die for. An Asian is shown at one point in the film, but she is only the server of ice-cream sodas.
Of all the 4 stars, the most watchable and most amusing is Bergen playing the judge Sharon, prim and proper but trying to get a date on her dating site. She is best known to the younger generation for her TV role in MURPHY BROWN though this one, in my opinion was the true beauty in her younger days. Her match with Richard Dreyfuss (JAWS, THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ, AMERICAN GRAFFITI) is the one that brought the most laughs in the audience in the promo screening I attended. Her other match up with Wallace Shawn falls flat. The audience seems to love (though this has been done before) the segment with Bruce with a uncontrollable hard-on, the result of his wife spiking his beer with a Viagara.
The script underwrites certain characters, which is understandable as there are too many characters in the film. Alicia Silverstone (CLUELESS) is largely wasted as Jill, one of Diane’s daughters who is not given much to do.
BOOK CLUB is merely an excuse to watch 4 stars come together. If watching them is all that matters, the this film might be for you. BOOK CLUB aims low as a glossy, standard senior product with nothing fresh to offer. The film achieves its aim.
BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, 1967
Movie Reviews
directed by Gene Saks
Starring: Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Mildred Natwick, Charles Boyer
Review by Virginia DeWitt
Paul and Corie Bratter are newlyweds in mid-’60s New York, who have just moved into a walk up in Greenwich Village and are trying to cope with all the problems that come with living in an old building in New York City, including the eccentric neighbors. Their biggest problem, though, is their distinctly different outlooks on life. Paul is a buttoned down attorney who insists that every problem must have a logical solution. Corie is a free spirit who insists that Paul has to learn to walk “barefoot in the park”.
REVIEW:
“Barefoot In The Park” was the first Neil Simon play to be made into a movie. It was a major success on Broadway in 1963 and Simon adapted the play for the screen himself. He worked with Gene Saks, who was better known as a television actor, and who made his feature film debut as a director with “Barefoot”. Saks would go on to direct other Simon adaptations such as “The Odd Couple” (1968), “The Last of the Red Hot Lovers” (1972) and “Brighton Beach Memoirs” (1986). Saks’ television background shows through in this film. His direction of the actors and the staging of the action are straightforward, with nothing original added to the concept of a filmed play. The look of the movie, its use of colour and lighting, is just marginally better than a TV show of the era.
| Saks is good at directing his actors for comedy, however. Pacing and timing is everything in delivering Simon’s dialogue. The repartee requires rapid fire delivery because, funny and sharp as he is, Simon’s effects are all on the surface. This exchange between Paul and Corie is a good example, beginning with Paul saying to her: |
“You want me to be rich and famous don’t you?”
“During the day. At night, I want you here and sexy.
“I tell you what, tomorrow night – your night – we’ll do whatever you want.”
“Something wild and crazy and insane?”
“Fine”
“Like what?”
“I’ll come home early. We’ll wallpaper each other.”
Or, a later argument where Corie gets to air her feelings about Paul’s inability to loosen up:
“You’re always dressed right. You always look right. You always say the right thing. You’re very nearly perfect!”
“That’s a rotten thing to say.”
“Before we were married I thought you slept with a tie.”
“No, just for very formal sleeps.”
Over forty years later, the film still works well and it is largely due to the terrific chemistry between its two stars. A very young Robert Redford and Jane Fonda each exhibit a wonderful naturalness in their performances. Given their later, much more serious work, both Redford and Fonda are surprisingly funny and relaxed here and their handling of the verbal and physical comedy is expert. Redford makes the uptight, anxiety ridden Paul sympathetic. In the early scenes where he spars with Corie, his exasperated reactions to her often impossible demands are perfect. In the final scenes, where he is drunk and wandering barefoot through Washington Square Park, Redford matches Fonda’s earlier exuberance with ease. For her part, Fonda is fun, sexy and spontaneous as Corie. She makes Corie’s capriciousness and emotional immaturity attractive, which is no small feat.
The cast is completed by two well known character actors. Charles Boyer, a big star in an earlier era of the movies, makes for a charming eccentric as the upstairs neighbour, Victor Velasco. Mildred Natwick, as Ethel Banks, is endearing as Corie’s slightly confused mother, subject to the same kinds of anxieties which Paul suffers from. In fact, in the scene that is the centre piece of the film – a double date at an Albanian restaurant – Simon gets a lot mileage, and laughs, from pairing off Paul with his middle aged mother-in-law. Paul, born middle aged, and Ethel commiserate with each other over the crazy night they have had to endure at the hands of Corie and Victor, both maddening in their unpredictability. Nothing comes from any of this, of course, as the couples inevitably realign, each paired off appropriately and happily once again.
“Barefoot In The Park” is still a fun movie largely due to the highly successful casting of its two young stars and Neil Simon’s writing, which is both light hearted and sharp at the same time.
Festival Reviews 