IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Released: 11th May
Seen: 10th October
In 2018 the film Book Club came out and was a huge hit. On a budget of 14 million, it grossed around 100 million, so it was pretty obvious that the industry was going to probably try and capitalize on that success. It seems like a simple enough idea, just get a bunch of legendary Oscar Winning/Nominated actresses who are over 60 together and put them in a silly little comedy, it’s how we got 80 For Brady and a few other films that make up something that the video essay channel Be Kind Rewind has dubbed the Book Club movie. Of course, with a profit that big it seemed inevitable that the quartet of Book Club women would be brought back to make another film. Sure enough they made one and… eh, it exists.
Book Club: The Next Chapter begins with seeing how the four women that make up the titular Book Club, Diane (Diane Keaton), Vivian (Jane Fonda), Sharon (Candice Bergen) and Carol (Mary Steenburgen), have handled the pandemic. Their monthly book club meetings have been relegated to zoom calls that grow more and more formulaic until the day finally comes when the lockdowns end and they’re able to actually meet in person. Finally back together and getting to hang out again, the four of them make the impulsive decision that after everything that they’ve been through the four of them need to celebrate with a vacation to Italy. With the plan quickly made in seemingly record time, the four women get on a plane to Italy and begin a wild fun adventure.
In Book Club: The Next Chapter’s favor, they’ve seemingly left the world of 50 Shades of Grey behind with only one brief reference to the book thrown out as a reminder of how this entire thing started. This time the book that’s been picked as the focus of the Book Club is The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho which is a book that allegedly predicts/directs the choices made along the trip and if you’re wondering what the reason for that book is then you’re not alone, it frankly feels like someone reverse-engineered the book choice based on the standard issue holiday comedy they tried to create because the connection is stunningly loose, it’s almost like the film forgot it was about a book club and had to slap something in there to make a thinly veiled connection (which is weird considering it’s the same writer-director team from the last movie).
Most of Book Club: The Next Chapter can pretty much be classed as just ‘generic’ because that’s what it feels like. It’s the standard issue jokes about a trip to Italy that many other films have made before, a few basic sex puns thrown out every now and then (anytime the word ‘big’ ‘size’ or ‘balls’ are mentioned be ready for the main cast to throw knowing looks that just tell you they’re thinking about penises) and there’s a couple of very pretty shots of the town. Nothing about the dialogue is memorable or even that funny, the only joke that even raises so much as a chuckle is because you have four of the greatest living actresses of all time handling the delivery. Sure, some of the jokes here are so old and dull they were written on the walls of the caves when humans first evolved, but Candice Owens is a sitcom legend for a goddamn reason and she will use the same skills she used to dominate scenes in Boston Legal in order to get something out of the tripe she’s been handed.
Indeed, any problems with the film can not be blamed on the cast who universally are fantastic, something that should shock no one since the four of them are all either Oscar winners or nominees for goddamn reasons. They absolutely have chemistry that shows off every second they’re on screen, they all have pretty great comedic timing that they certainly use to get the most out of the material that they possibly can and every single one of them is just delightful to watch. It’s honestly kind of messed up that this group of icons aren’t being given material that matches their level of talent, it’s hard to fathom that they aren’t being given their own versions of Everything Everywhere All At Once that can remind the world of their enormous talents. Instead, they basically have to take up films like this because it’s what’s available, at least they got a nice trip to Italy out of it.
The main problem that Book Club: The Next Chapter runs into is that it just isn’t that funny, despite the cast doing the best they can it’s not like they’ve got much to work with. It’s just kind of boring at times, going through basic stuff we’ve seen before and not doing anything creative with it. Maybe the funniest moment is right up the top when they’re showing the zoom calls and we get wacky moments like people failing to use zoom filters properly or a couple of great quick gags where someone picks up a new hobby and then we cut back to it being a disaster but once they get in the room together it’s just kind of coasting on the charm of the actors, which is plentiful but I can get a better version of that by watching their press interviews where they also tell jokes.
Not only do we not have many good jokes about Italy or sex, and this is the tiniest nitpick ever but it feels like it needs mentioning, this movie very pointedly takes place post-Covid and they don’t even really have any good jokes about that! In general, the odds of anyone wanting to hear a Covid joke are slim but this is one of the few films that could naturally slip a few of them in without it feeling out of place and once they get to Italy they don’t even bother trying (they do maybe one during the Zoom meeting and again it mostly works because it’s a sitcom style joke that’s handled by the 5-time Emmy Winning sitcom legend of the cast). Obviously they don’t need to bring it up all the time, not saying anyone would need to catch the damn disease or something but this film is supposedly a comedy set after a world changing event and it just ignores it completely when we all know there is material there. If you’re going to touch on a major topic, either actually use it for all it’s worth or don’t even bother, that’s all I’m saying
Beyond that, the film looks pretty fine mostly because it’s very hard to mess up a shot consisting of the streets of Italy. A lot of very standard visuals that one expects in a film set in that country, nothing too spectacular because clearly they think the comedy of the script will be enough to carry the film through (as has already been mentioned, that comedy doesn’t really exist) but other than that, it’s just kind of boring to look at. If you’ve seen one shot of Venice you’ve kind of seen them all and this film isn’t going to be taking chances with a creative shot if it can help it, that might be fun and we can’t have too much of that.
Look if you’re desperate to see four legends bouncing off each other, it’s possible to do worse than Book Club: The Next Chapter (80 for Brady does still exist after all) but we should expect better. Not only because audience members should be generally asking for comedies to contain actual jokes and fun stories but because we have a whole cavalcade of legendary screen actresses who should be given material worthy of them. At best you can say Book Club: The Next Chapter gave four legends a fun trip to Italy and that’s lovely for them. I hope they had a ton of fun making it but it’s just dull to sit through. This is clearly the kind of film more aimed towards an older audience (who didn’t go see it because we’re still in a pandemic and stunningly that still impacts box office on smaller films like this) but even they deserve something better than this. It’s certainly got charm, but that’s because of the cast. For a film about a book club, the problem is that no one read the words being handed to them and demanded a new author to fix things up. Sad to say there probably won’t be another chapter in this story.
Movie Meister Reviews 