The sequel to an appalling 2017 geronto-comedy that misused blameless legends – one this writer named among the 10 worst movies of the decade – begins with the eponymous book club facing up to Zoom culture. The tantalising promise of a follow-up based around Normal People is teased and then dismissed. Eventually the four friends emerge from the pandemic to a changed world. Cinema was more buffed about than most cultural forces, but it seems that appalling 2023 geronto-comedies that misuse blameless legends are still viable.
Though occasional mention is made of Paulo Coelho’s insufferable The Alchemist, the book-club device is largely abandoned as Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen and Jane Fonda (let’s not bother with character names) head to Italy for that last person’s hen do. As before, the film, though pretending to grey liberation, is enormously condescending to folk born before Elvis’s Sun sessions.
There is an early, excruciating scene in which Jane Fonda – you know, the star of Klute and Barbarella – gets to appear simultaneously flustered and excited by stone penises on classical statuary. The current episode adds to the discomfort by being even more patronising towards the entire nation of Italy. “We-ah sorry for spoiler, belle signore. But we-ah steala your luggage. Okay?” rogues nearly say.
Giancarlo Giannini, now 80, turns up as an indolent police officer. Hollywood had, in Roman Holiday, advanced beyond this level of stereotyping 70 years ago. (One can’t help but imagine a version, perhaps inspired by Normal People, set in the contemporary “Emerald Isle”. Would that be even worse? Do I mean even better? Where was I? What’s happening? Where are my pills? Is it time for me to fall into the Aegean after unlikely sex in a gondola?)
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Adventures in disproportionately fellatio-related double entendre do something to salt the sappiness. “There are so many things I’d like to put in your mouths,” a chef, once involved with Steenburgen, announces while planning a feast. The line about what Mother Teresa was up to while “on her knees” is best left only half-explained. This is not Carry On stuff. These are the things Finbarr Saunders (and his double entendres) from Viz comic heard before a “fnarr, fnarr!” or a “yurkk, yurkk!” I’m not being Jane Fonda with the stone mickies here. I’m just asking for a bit more invention in the lewd allusions.
[ Jane Fonda: From Oscar-winning actor to 50 shades of ****Opens in new window ]
With the best will in the world, not every one of the four actors seems to be wholly on her game. A few lines are delivered at the deliberate pace of a civil-defence warning. The editing in massed chatter has a juddery quality that suggests some papering over of cracks. The whole exercise, from thunderingly obvious music cues to crudely engineered sentimental pay-off, has a depressing whiff of “will this do?” about it. The Next Chapter arrives just in time for US Mother’s Day. It has four actors you like. Mambo Italiano is on the soundtrack. Will this do, Mom?
Well, perhaps. This may be the effects of Stockholm syndrome, but, after a cumulative total of about 2½ hours of Book Club content, I found myself wondering if I might actually be having a good time. I wasn’t not having a good time watching Steenburgen play the piano accordion while Hugh Quarshie belted out Laura Brannigan’s Gloria. I wasn’t not having a good time enjoying Fonda come to terms with an unselfishly low-key Don Johnson.
On that issue, isn’t it nice that three of the male leads are a decade younger than the women to whom they are (briefly in one case) romantically attached? Would we rather see the stars have dumb fun than struggle with fading capacities in a half-cooked slice of grey Oscar bait? Maybe. Maybe this will do.
One of the more enjoyable dreadful films of the season.
Book Club: The Next Chapter opens on Friday, May 12th
