I'd like to say I find this movie a major disappointment because I read the book first...but I didn't. No, the movie disappointed me all on its very own, which is SUCH A SHAME because its three leads are a gay man's DREAM TEAM! Hawn, Midler and Keaton work seamlessly together, and appear to be having just so much fun, that they, through sheer force of will, make this movie work to whatever extent that it DOES work. The film had EVERYTHING going for it...and yet it remains a 'should-have-been'. It SHOULD HAVE BEEN terrific, a modern-day classic, and there are millions out there for whom it is exactly that: classic. I wish I could be among them because I SO WANTED TO LOVE THIS MOVIE. As mentioned, the three leads are magnificent, each in a role that plays on their strengths, perhaps even their stereotypes; however, the screenplay seems almost to be a mishmash, and one needn't have read the book to feel that whole scenes and entire subplots were or may have been jettisoned after being filmed, giving the film a sometimes-jarring, slightly unfinished edge. Sarah Jessica Parker and Marcia Gay Harden, just to name a couple of performers, especially seem to have suffered at the editor's hands. The screenplay is just as much to blame as the editing, veering dangerously into cartoon territory: at times, the husbands, mistresses and children seem to have arrived straight out of some Hanna-Barbera creation, and they aren't helped any by supporting performances that can only charitably be called overdone: Dan Hedaya, Victor Garber, Elizabeth Berkley (here exhibiting the same level of "fine" acting that garnered her a Razzie for "Showgirls"). I suppose what bothers me most is that this film very early on loses touch with what's real, settling instead for cheap yuks and easy potshots, and is also full of horses**t: the whole "it's not revenge, it's justice" thing just smells of PC, new-age, girl-power pap. You know...I STILL cannot QUITE put my finger on exactly what is wrong with this movie, but I CAN tell you this: watch the movie, then read the book. Everything that works in the book suddenly makes clear what is missing from the film, and maybe what that thing is is its heart, its soul. What a shame.
Review of The First Wives Club
