Book Club: The Next Chapter Review
A distinct lack of actual book references in this film.
The gang is back together again. This time, Vivian (Jane Fonda) is getting married, and Diane (Diane Keaton), Carol (Mary Steenburgen) and Sharon (Candice Bergen) take her to Italy for her bachelorette. There, they find stunning landscapes, oodles of prosecco, drama in a pair of dastardly porters, and romance - new, old and rekindled.
Look, this film is going to appeal to a certain type of person no matter how terrible it is. And it is objectively terrible. The plot is borderline nonexistent, the jokes are the lowest of low hanging fruit, and the performances are borderline sleepwalking. Indeed, one of the funniest parts of this film is watching these characters suddenly break out into ‘tears’ - quotations needed, as the performance level here never allows for real tears, sounds that could really indicate tears, or indeed any change in facial expression.
The film also has a series of tremendously annoying habits. The first is that it insists on using predominantly film quotes as dialogue for its character (contrary to the media referenced in the title), and having its characters immediately reference what film it came from. Think nearly 2 hours of “Of all the gin joints. Casablanca.” The second gripe is that halfway through the film, Diane and Vivian just go stand on a balcony and explain the plot of the previous half of the movie, and then literally say “I wonder what will happen next”. We get it. It’s a movie. Some things have happened. Some things have happened. Don’t pad the runtime with this.
Finally, and perhaps most frustratingly, Candice Bergen delivers a speech in prison that stops and starts more times than the ending of Return of the King.
The most important thing to remember though, is that none of this matters an ounce. The cinema we saw it in, full of people geared towards this exact sort of completely banal, inoffensive, afternoon content, absolutely loved it. They roared with laughter at all the right moments, and to be fair probably shed a tear. If you loved the first movie, you’ll love this movie too.
