A Disappointing Continuation

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The short cameo appearance of Stockard Channing as she takes leave of this life after being dumped by her husband for a younger model galvanizes three of her friends Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton to take some action other than sit on their alimony which can be a sometimes thing.Belaboring the obvious what they all have in common is that they were all first wives, veterans of marriage who get dumped by their husbands going into midlife crisis. The First Wives Club is open to any women who feel they've been put through the ringer in their divorces, don't just get mad, get more than even.Goldie Hawn is an aging actress who goes through all kinds of makeup and plastic surgery just to stay young. Graduate to character roles Goldie, better than you did that. Diane Keaton is this sunny optimist whose world was her marriage and she still tries to maintain her sunny outlook on life. Midler is the most bitter of all as her family money and connections help start Dan Hedaya's successful furniture business.It's Hedaya who suffers the most, but he's also the most likely in the end to realize what a jerk he's been. Of all the supporting roles I liked Philip Bosco best as Midler's Uncle Carmine. It irks him how his niece has been disgraced for as he puts it, he started his business with a lot of merchandise that fell off the back of a truck.Goldie Hawn's best scene is with her cosmetic surgeon Rob Reiner who tells her she's over the legal limit for botox. Hawn is beginning to sound like Gloria Swanson on being an aging actress, but no way is she ready for any closeup believe it or not Mr. DeMille.In fact her ex who is a producer has the chutzpah to want Hawn to play mother in his next picture opposite Elizabeth Berkley the teenage bimbo he wants to go back to his teen years with. Maggie Smith who is a marriage veteran herself who keeps herself nicely from alimony is friend to these women. Watch some of her work with the world's worst interior decorator Bronson Pinchot.In the end the women get into a worthwhile endeavor and do realize revenge is sweet but there's more to life than getting even.The First Wives Club is built nicely on the foundation of the good chemistry developed between the three first wives. And they get good ensemble support as well. A nice comedy from the 90s.

In 1996's the first wives club, we are told the story of 4 Middle Aged college friends: Annie, Brenda, Elise, and Cynthia. Each of them had husbands leave them for younger women. Cynthia commits suicide within the 1st 10 minutes of the movie, suffering from drinking and depression when her husband left her for a much younger, better looking woman. They all decide to get together and in Cynthias honor and get revenge from their husbands. This movie offers up very funny jokes situations and also features women empowerment. In the end it offers up a great message. And also features a great cast from Bette Midler(Hocus pocus) to Goldie Hawn(Private Benjamin) to Diane Keaton(father of the bride) Stockard Channing (Grease) as Cynthia, Sarah Jessica Parker(sex and the city) and Elizabeth Berkley(Showgirls). As you would expect from this A-list cast, the acting is very good in this film. There's also a very funny scene in a lesbian night club, when the women are trying to win over Diane Keaton's daughter to help them. This is a well-made feel good movie that anyone can enjoy whether male or female. Seven out of 10

This film is, I think, more one for the sisterhood than anyone else. I don't mean that in any derogatory sense, but whatever buttons it presses rather pass us guys by. It is something of a mish-mash, redeemed, in part, by rather good and definitely entertaining performances from Bette Midler, as the abandoned wife of a Jewish merchant, and Goldie Hawn, an ageing Oscar-winning film start, who has also been abandoned by her film producer husband. Making up the threesome is Diane Keaton (who is never my favourite actress, I'm sorry to say) as the doormat wife of an philandering adman. The trio is brought together by the suicide of the fourth member of their college group, the abandoned wife of a wealthy Wall Street money-man, who hurls herself to her death from the balcony of her Central Park apartment. The trio she leaves behind had all promised to stick together through thick and thin on their graduation day, but in the event had lost touch. Meeting up again after all those years at their friend's funeral, they get roaring drunk afterwards 'catching up', with Hawn and Midler admitting they have been traded in by their husbands for younger model and Keaton, still in denial and insisting she and her husband are only temporarily separated, obviously soon to be in the same boat. One thing leads to another, and the trio decide to form a First Wives Club in order to get revenge on the husband's who discarded them. And so on. The story itself isn't really important: it could be a roaring success in some director's hands and a dire disaster in those of another. That's the thin with films derived from books: they are entities in themselves. They are not a silver screen realisation of some novel or other. There have been many poor films based on cracking novels (and even works of non-fiction). And there have been great films based on very poor material (and films which consciously set out to be a faithful 'film of the book' tend to be pretty poor). In the hands of director Hugh Wilson and based on Olivia Goldsmith's novel, this is no great shakes, though it has to be said that a pretty average film is shot through with several gems – great scenes, great acting and great one-liners – from Midler and Hawn. But overall, as I suggest, this is one for the sisterhood. Given its soul and 'message' (yes, I'm afraid there does seem to be a message of some kind, although one pronounced in such a half-hearted fashion, I do wonder why they even bothered), the sisters might well love it. There are curious elements which add absolutely nothing to the film but makes sense if this is, as I suspect it was intended to be, some kind of sanitised sisterhood tract. Why make Diane Keaton's daughter a lesbian? There is no reason not to, of course, and I have many gay and lesbian friends and colleagues. But what was the purpose of having this lesbian character in the film. It seems purely grafted on to no effect. Then there is the character of Keaton's character's mother: what purpose does she have in the film? Beats me. The inclusion of Maggie Smith as the queen bee of New York society (with a very dodgy American accent even to my Brit ears) seems more like an attempt to attract the punters and gain a little spurious 'class' for the film. She plays hardly any part in the film, except as a cackhanded plot device, and even that might have been achieved with a small re-write. Me, I'll remember the good bits involving Midler and Hawn, but I wouldn't have been heartbroken had I fished another £3 DVD out of my supermarket bargain bin rather than this one and never seen it.

From director Hugh Wilson (Police Academy, Blast from the Past), this is a very likable comedy with three very likable Hollywood divas. Basically, in childhood, Elise Elliot Atchison (Goldie Hawn), Brenda Morelli Cushman (Bette Midler), Annie MacDuggan Paradise (Diane Keaton) and Cynthia Swann Griffin (Grease's Stockard Channing) were best friends at Middlebury College during the 1960s, but marriages and kids forced them to drift apart. They are brought back together at the funeral of Cynthia, who committed suicide because she and her husband divorced, and he went off with a younger woman. We find out Elise and Brenda have been recently divorced also, and Annie is separated, soon to follow their same situation, and all their husbands have done the same as Cynthia's, and gone for younger women. All three helped their husbands' careers, so they decide to get their revenge by ruining their careers, obviously they call themselves "The First Wives Club". Brenda is trying to expose ex-husband Morty Cushman (Commando's Dan Hedaya) - with Shelly Stewart (Sarah Jessica Parker) - for income tax fraud, Elise is trying to ruin the reputation of ex-husband Bill Atchison (Titanic's Victor Garber) - with Phoebe LaVelle (Showgirls' Elizabeth Berkley), and Annie gets half the advertising business of ex-husband Aaron Paradise (Stephen Collins) - with her own psychologist Dr. Leslie Rosen (Flubber's Marcia Gay Harden). But they decide the revenge plan would make them as bad as their husbands, so they are funding a new non-profit organisation dedicated to aiding abused women, in memory of Cynthia. Also starring Dame Maggie Smith as Gunilla Garson Goldberg, Bronson Pinchot as Duarto Feliz, Jennie Dundas as Chris Paradise, Eileen Heckart as Catherine MacDuggan and Scream 2's Timothy Olyphant as Brett Artounian. Apparently Midler steals the show from Hawn ans Keaton, I didn't really notice, I thought all three women got their had equal amounts of great moments, as for the film itself, the one-liners and physical comedy are fun to watch, it is a terrific comedy film. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Music for Marc Shaiman. Very good!