OT: Book Club(Keaton, Fonda, Bergen, Steenburgen)

Forget Solo and the MCU...

...I saw "Book Club" on invitation and made a study of it. Its a late-age sex comedy that takes up the current trend of "movies for aging boomers."

The movies will honor that huge Boomer demographic for some time to come, I think. We've got Liam Neeson beating up all young comers in his action movies from "Taken" on, and we've had several "sex is great after seventy" movies for MEN like "Lost Vegas" and "Going in Style"(both of which feature Morgan Freeman , who is in surprising "me too" trouble right now.)

So here's one for the "girls."

I was most surprised to see that Diane Keaton got billing over Jane Fonda. Fonda has two Best Actress Oscars; Keaton has one. Fonda had a "great prestige actress" persona in the seventies(coupled with the importance of her political activism) and then "retired" for a coupla decades to marry Ted Turner and stuff.

But let's face it -- Keaton has worked more often and more steadily than Fonda over the decades, and in passable middle-of-the road hits like "Father of the Bride" and Something's Gotta Give(where she did a middle-aged sex scene with Nicholson and made the same point she's here to make in "Book Club," except 15 years even older!) La Fonda has never seemed to get the traction she needs for a full career(she turned down Chinatown!) -- her political views still follow her around, too. She has enemies.

The other two ladies are Candice Bergen -- old, plump, and limping but still arch with a line -- and Mary Steenburgen, sunny and sexy and younger than the others(iit seems in these old person movies, one cast member is ALWAYS younger than the rest.)

Memories of Fonda in Klute and Keaton in Looking for Mr. Goodbar fade fast in this cute, mild romantic romp. (I can't say that young Candice Bergen had much of a reputation for acting, but let's use Carnal Knowledge as HER 70's touchstone here; and as for Steenburgen, she did a little nudity in her Oscar role about Howard Hughes will.)

The premise: our four elderly ladies have a book club. One of them offers up "50 Shades of Gray" to the group and they all get stimulated. Well, Fonda is ALWAYS stimulated(in a nice nod to her sixties Barbarella sex kitten incarnation)...and the others need to thaw in various ways. Status? Keaton is recently widowed. Fonda is a wealthy hotel baron("MS Trump") and "man-izer" who has never married. Bergen is divorced and celibate for 18 years. Steenburgen is married.

Enter the men:

Don Johnson for Fonda -- what a handsome guy he still is, and why didn't HE become a movie star? Pretty and rugged at the same time. He's still got it.

Andy Garcia for Keaton. His distinctive deadpan voice is now a bullfrog monotone, but he's cool. Playing an airline pilot rich from a patent -- he's the Mr. Right of the whole movie.

Craig T. Nelson for Steenburgen -- the one male in the film playing a husband. A retired husband. With impotency issues. (Personally, I was shocked at how the once hail and hearty man's man Nelson looks and sounds so frail in this film. He AGED. He's old.)

Richard Dreyfuss for Bergen -- though its really a one-scene cameo, but a charming one. He's still a little elfin guy with a high pitched voice, but he's got HISTORY: American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters, and even that irritating Goodbye Girl that won him an Oscar.

I return to my contention that Hollywood has many fine actors, but few well-written scripts. What entertainment value there is in this film comes from the players, not from the plot(which is really skimpy and poorly structured -- the stories just sort of end.) I can't recommend the "story" of Book Club even as decent lightweight Hollywood formula comedy.

But as a study in where our former great young actresses are today -- and some male actors with them -- its an interesting watch.

And this: these women are presented as sexual and youthful in outlook...but they are clearly 70-something or older; "Golden Girls" with more glamour. One feels Hollywood here pushing past "middle-aged romance" and moving full tilt towards "romance for the elderly."

Which is a good thing. I never want it to end....

PS. Three of the four male leads wear light beards. Its a great look for late age.

PPS. Of current concern: an unknown actress plays the dance teacher for Steenburgen and Nelson. This young woman, in many shots, is a dead ringer for: Young Margot Kidder. I found it very weird.