I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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.

The First Wives Club (1996): Dir: Hugh Wilson / Cast: Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, Maggie Smith, Elizabeth Berkley: An ugly creation of retaliation where the sympathetic wives are as ruthless as their cheating husbands. Three women are dumped by their husbands for younger women, and after a fourth woman commits suicide over her break-up, they band together seeking justice. They form The First Wives Club for battered wives. Goldie Hawn plays an actress down on her luck and resorting to alcohol. Bette Midler eats away her frustration. Diane Keaton is in denial. Good background heads to formula and an ending that justifies revenge. This sort of theme worked much better in the comedy Nine to Five where three female office workers retaliated against their sexist boss. Here it just comes across as merely a lash out at men, as if they are all this bad. Hugh Wilson does a fine job directing but his Police Academy is far more funnier. On the plus side there is fine comic chemistry between the three leading ladies but the husbands are merely props. Elizabeth Berkley plays an underage brainless actress who lives with one of the cheaters. There is a message that many viewers may relate to when it comes to abandoned wives and husbands seeking younger women. The film is great to look at with its stunning art direction that makes the club worth entry. Score: 6 ½ / 10

"First Wives Club" is an example of excellent movie making. The pacing, the continuity, the look of the scenes and the characterizations are all very funny and charming and entertaining. For a big budget holiday movie made to make money, it does its job and does it very well. Midler is especially excellent. So is Dan Hedaya as her ex and Dame Maggie Smith as a friend indeed. I think that the major reason that the movie is unappreciated by too many critics is because it's a "woman's picture." It's designed to be a very light comedy that brings in women and their families to generate box office. Whatever its genre, however, the movie works in every way it's intended to work. The sets are great, the costumes are perfect and the acting is really funny and also touching when it needs to be, such as when Sarah Jessica Parker says to Bette Midler, "Brenda, this outfit might look really good on you... why don't you try one on in YOUR SIZE!" Midler's fury suddenly deflates, and she exhibits pathos. Lots of funny lines and facial expressions and over-the-top emotion, and the directing was, I think, very precise and well done.

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.