Starring: Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Mary Steenburgen, Candice Bergen, Craig T. Nelson, Richard Dreyfuss, Andy García, Don Johnson, Alicia Silverstone, Katie Aselton, Wallace Shawn
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Comedy directed and co-written by Bill Holderman in his directorial debut. The story centers on four lifelong friends, Diane (Diane Keaton), who is recently widowed after 40 years of marriage. Vivian (Jane Fonda) enjoys her men with no strings attached. Sharon (Candice Bergen) is still working through a decades-old divorce, and Carol (Mary Steenburgen), whose marriage is in a slump after 35 years.
The four women attend a monthly book club where they bond over the typical suggested literature. However, their lives are turned upside down when their book club tackles the infamous Fifty Shades of Grey. Viewing it as a wakeup call, they decide to expand their lives and chase pleasures that have eluded them.
Our Favorite Quote:
'The truth is, love is not blind, and it's not a battlefield, and it's not the sun, or the moon, or everything we load onto it. It's just a word until someone gives it meaning.' - Sharon (Book Club) Click To Tweet
Best Quotes (Total Quotes: 28)
Sharon: My son is engaged and my husband is in Maui with a tartlet named Cheryl.
Diane: Oh.
Sharon: I need a drink.
Carol: Your “husband”?
Diane: You can’t possibly still care about what Tom is doing.
Sharon: I don’t care. But the guy gets seasick in a swimming pool. I mean, what the hell is he doing in Maui?
Vivian: Sounds like he’s doing Cheryl in Maui.
Sharon: Oh, please. Who gets involved in a relationship at sixty-seven? I mean, what is the point?
Vivian: The point is to get laid. It’s always the point.
Sharon: Don’t make me sick.
Carol: Who still says “get laid”?
Diane: Who still has any interest?
Vivian: No, no, no. I am not going to let us become those people.
Diane: What people…
Vivian: You know what people. The people who stop living before they stop living.
Sharon: I haven’t had sex since my divorce and it’s been the happiest eighteen years of my life.
Vivian: That must be some kind of record. I mean, what even happens to a vagina after eighteen years?
Diane: I think Werner Herzog did a documentary on that.
Carol: Yeah. It’s called The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
Sharon: Okay! Will you stop it? Moving on. Let’s talk about the book.
Vivian: Oh, God. The hiking book? Really?
Carol: Come on! I liked it! It’s such a remarkable undertaking. Can you imagine?
Sharon: No, I cannot. I don’t even like walking to my mailbox.
Carol: It’s just an amazing story. So many layers. I wouldn’t even know how to break it down.
Vivian: I’ll break it down for you. She hikes, she lost her boot, she did heroin.
Diane: Did you only read the back cover?
Vivian: I wish. I kept wanting to shout at her, “Oh, wait ten years, honey. Dry shampoo is coming.”
Sharon: If you would ever connect with something on a more emotional level…
Vivian: Emotional connection is highly overrated.
Carol: You have not had an emotional connection for forty years.
Sharon: Wow, that must be some type of record.
Diane: Yeah, but what happens to emotions after forty years?
Vivian: Okay, okay, are you guys having fun?
Diane: Oh, come on. You know we love you.
Carol: Maybe it’s time you did take a hike and try to reconnect with your own true self.
Sharon: I’ll buy you a backpack.
Vivian: I’ll tell you how to reconnect with your own true self, and it ain’t by walking alone through the desert.
Vivian: I would like to introduce you to Christian Grey.
Diane: Oh.
Sharon: Oh, no.
Vivian: It was a bestseller made into a movie.
[hands out Fifty Shades of Grey books]
Carol: That is our theme this year.
Diane: Oh, wow.
Sharon: We are not reading this.
Vivian: It’s my month! When it’s your month, you can choose whatever boring, depressing book you want.
Sharon: I’m not sure this qualifies as a book.
Vivian: Well, fifty million people can’t be wrong.
Sharon: To… To even be holding this book is embarrassing.
Vivian: Who’s judging you, your cat?
Carol: I do like the idea of a romance.
Sharon: We are too old!
Carol: But it says right here “for mature audiences.”
Diane: Yeah, that certainly sounds like us.
Sharon: We started this book club to stimulate our minds.
Vivian: Well, from what I hear, this book is quite stimulating.
Diane: Oh, God.
Vivian: So, come on! Let’s toast to our new book.
Carol: All right.
Vivian: Oh, good. Drink up. Hoist that glass. Happy reading, ladies!
[referring to the Shades of Grey book the customs officer is holding]
Diane: Oh, what’s that? That’s not mine. I’ve never seen that book before, honestly.
Customs Officer: This is nasty.
Vivian: This is going to be a game changer.
Carol: Have you ever been spanked?
Diane: What?
Carol: This book has got me in a total tizzy.
Carol: We’re sure not spring flowers.
Vivian: No. More like potpourri.
Bruce: Can you hand me the zip-ties?
Carol: Are you thinking about tying me up?
[looking confused]
Bruce: What?
Carol: Nothing. I was just…
Sharon: If women our age were meant to have sex God wouldn’t do what he does to our bodies.
Vivian: Speak for yourself.
[nudges her breasts]
Sharon: Well, that was not God, that was Dr. Nazaria.
Carol: [to Sharon] You just need to put yourself out there.
[as she’s looking at dating website]
Assistant: Judge Meyers?
Sharon: Yes.
[suddenly a voice from the dating website makes suggestions]
Website: Warm up your love life with these tips.
Assistant: Do you need anything else, your Honor?
Website: The man of your dreams is just a click away.
[looking embarrassed tries to close the website]
Sharon: No, I don’t. I’m fine. Thank you.
Assistant: Yep.
Arthur: Slim?
Vivian: My oh my. Arthur Ronnie.
Arthur: What’s it been, forty years?
Vivian: That’s impossible. That would mean I was only six.
Vivian: Do you need some help?
[they see Sharon with the dress she tried on in the dressing room]
Carol: I don’t think you have that on quiet right.
Sharon: Can you get me some scissors, I can’t feel my feet.
Carol: Since when do you eat ice cream?
Vivian: I got a brain freeze.
Sharon: Here, give that to a professional.
[Sharon takes the ice cream tub away from Vivian]
Vivian: Oh, my God.
Sharon: [to Diane] Do you even remember your last date? We’re talking Nixon era.
Vivian: It’s the first date, so put on something sexy.
Sharon: Just be comfortable.
[Diane comes out wearing a large men’s shirt]
Sharon: That’s too comfortable.
Diane: Right.
[answering the door to her date, Mitchell]
Diane: Well, hey, you.
[Vivian, Sharon and Carol watch them from one of windows]
Carol: I love a man who brings flowers.
Mitchell: Everybody remembers their first kiss.
Diane: How about I tell you about my best kiss?
Mitchell: Maybe that hasn’t happened yet.
[referring to the diner]
Arthur: I never thought I’d be back here again.
Vivian: Is it as good as you remember?
Arthur: Maybe better.
Jill: [to Diane] Mom, you need to be a little bit realistic.
[referring to Mitchell]
Diane: There’s a man out there who makes me feel things that I didn’t think was still possible.
[referring to Mitchell]
Diane: Maybe things with us will go bust, but that’s life. and I’m not through living mine just yet.
George: [to Sharon] You are better at this than you think.
Sharon: [to George] Shut up and kiss me.
Bruce: I can’t believe you put Viagra in my beer.
[they get pulled over by the cops]
Sheriff Mendoza: Sir, I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle.
Bruce: I don’t think that’s a good idea, officer.
[Bruce steps out in front of the cop, who obviously notices the effects of the Viagra]
Sheriff Mendoza: Okay, enjoy your night.
[knowingly to Carol]
Sheriff Mendoza: You too.
Carol: Thank you.
Vivian: I don’t care what society says about women our age. Sex must not be taken off the table.
Sharon: Do we want another bottle?
Carol and Vivian: Yes!
[Sharon gives a toast at her son and ex-husband’s double engagement party]
Sharon: Um, as few, well, if any of you know, I’m Jared’s mother, Judge Meyers. Or Sharon. I just wanted to say, I don’t think that’s what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote those lines. He was saying Cupid is blind. He wasn’t saying that people should go think themselves into love and a system of pluses or minuses. But whatever. Anyway, when I look at my son, I am so proud of him because he has had the courage to put himself out there, and he’s found someone to make him happy. That’s inspiring. Even for someone as old as me. The truth is, love is not blind, and it’s not a battlefield, and it’s not the sun, or the moon, or everything we load onto it. It’s just a word until someone gives it meaning. And that’s what the two of you have found in each other. In fact, all four of you. And we all deserve that. Well done.
Total Quotes: 28
What do you think of the Book Club quotes? Let us know what you think in the comments below as we’d love to know.
Trailer:
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The moral to this story is “women over 65 are sexual and need a man”. While those exact words may or may not be uttered during this movie, it’s said over and over and over in a sparse variety of very predictable ways.
The jokes were corny or yawn-worthy. For instance, hearing Candice Bergen’s character use the “F” word came as no surprise to us nor did it make us laugh, since she has always played tough cookie types.
And seeing Craig T. Nelson, who plays Mary Steenburgen’s husband, get out of his car with a pointy erection (after she put a “blue pill” in his beer), had some in the audience rolling while we just rolled our eyes. One woman in the audience yelled out “after 4 hours call your doctor!”…yes, yes, we’ve all seen those commercials for the last, um, how many years now? 10? 15? Jokes about erectile dysfunction pills are so 1995 that you have to be a lot more clever than this movie is to make the jokes new or relevant.
The romantic partnerships weren’t believable and the moments of kissing/sexuality were cringeworthy, not because of the age of those involved, but because of the lack of chemistry between them and the lack of any effort to establish any intellectual or emotional intimacy beforehand. At the very least, there could have been some foreplay.
The movie borrows in part from the “pretty woman” fantasy in which girl (in this case it’s Diane Keaton) suddenly meets boy who turns out to be the millionaire of her dreams and whisks her off in a fab sports car to his desert paradise then flies her through gorgeous Canyonlands and red arches on his private plane, instantly curing her of her overwhelming fear of flying.
Though Ms. Keaton plays a mother to two adult women, not a prostitute, she does have some cutesy adolescent ways similar to Julia Roberts’ prostitute. But Ms. Keaton mostly retains her overdone and out-of-date neurotic affectations that sprung her to fame in Annie Hall. And somehow, because she nervously pops pills while seated next to him, accidentally grabs his crotch when the plane jerks, and lies to him about the book she’s reading, this millionaire pilot (played by Andy Garcia) who lives in a southwestern desert mansion paradise finds her SO charming that he suddenly wants only her in his life.
It’s stunning that, even when she drives up at night with her U-Haul, unannounced, this handsome millionaire pilot is, once again, home and alone.
Jane Fonda’s character is a sex-crazed jetsetter who runs into an old boyfriend (Don Johnson), who is charmed by her sarcasm and lack of interest in him, inviting her only to coffee and diner meetups…without sex or even kisses. She tells her girlfriends she’s baffled about how different this is because she’s able to sleep in his presence, something she has never done with her many sex partners. Then he tells her he has to leave and wants her to go with him to be his mate. She turns him down, but, of course, ends up with the ever-trite scene of rushing to the airport to stop him, but, when she misses his flight, she returns to her rooftop getaway where -you guessed it- he awaits.
YAWN. And they kiss feverishly. SNORE.
The movie hopes to seem progressive by having female characters who are very financially successful yet Candice Bergen’s character, despite being a federal judge, singlehandedly sets feminism back a few decades by having her start out with sarcastic putdowns about sex, and women who want men. She hasn’t had sex in years, but, when she goes online to a dating site, she suddenly can’t even do her job because she’s so obsessed with the site. After one man (Richard Dreyfuss) shows interest, they meet for dinner. He asks for a kiss goodnight. She grabs him to kiss him and the next thing you know, they’re seen climbing out of the back of her car with disheveled hair, scrambling to put their clothes back on.
And suddenly, bam! Ms. Bergen’s character goes from angry and bitter woman who frightens and intimidates everyone to being a softened person making a surprisingly loving toast to both her engaged son and her ex-husband who is also engaged, to a ditzy, clueless woman about 40 years his junior.
We’d have rolled our eyes again, but by this time, we could barely keep our eyes open.
Rating: 1/5
I am looking for Sharon’s toast lines as well. What she said about love at the engagement party.
This is the lines you’re looking for I think:
Sharon: I just wanted to say, I don’t think that’s what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote those lines. He was saying Cupid is blind. He wasn’t saying that people should go think themselves into love and a system of pluses or minuses. But whatever. Anyway, when I look at my son, I am so proud of him because he has had the courage to put himself out there, and he’s found someone to make him happy. That’s inspiring. Even for someone as old as me. The truth is, love is not blind, and it’s not a battlefield, and it’s not the sun, or the moon, or everything we load onto it. It’s just a word until someone gives it meaning. And that’s what the two of you have found in each other. In fact, all four of you. And we all deserve that. Well done.
Thank you‼️
Some of these quotes make me laugh out loud all over again‼️
I’m also looking for the quote that Vivian said about pot pourri….
I believe this is the line you’re looking for:
Carol: We’re sure not spring flowers.
Vivian: No. More like potpourri.
I am trying to remember what one of the ladies said in her toast. “Here’s to living your best life ????” What is the rest of it?
See the above answer for A, who had the same question. Hope that’s the quote you’re looking for!