This summer, the girls are back. This is the tagline for Sanaa Hamri’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008), but it functions just as well for Michael Patrick King’s Sex and the City 2 (2010), Elizabeth Banks’ Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), Ol Parker’s Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018), and, most recently, Bill Holderman’s Book Club: The Next Chapter. Apparently, there’s something comforting about the return of a familiar female ensemble that pairs well with the planet reaching its maximum tilt toward the sun. The girls returning this particular summer? Vivian (Jane Fonda), Diane (Diane Keaton), Carol (Mary Steenburgen), and Sharon (Candice Bergen): stars of Book Club (2018) and, now, its globetrotting sequel. After all, one can’t earn a spot in the Girls Are Back canon without going international.
Forget what happened in the first film? Or simply outright missed it? It doesn’t matter. The audience is caught up to speed with the help of an expository montage of Zoom calls throughout the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sharon is retired from the federal courts; Carol has closed her restaurant while her husband, Bruce (Craig T. Nelson), is recovering from a heart attack; Diane and her boyfriend, Mitchell (Andy García), are living together; and, as we discover in the quartet’s first in-person book-club meeting since before the pandemic, Vivian and Arthur (Don Johnson) are engaged. To celebrate, Carol — inspired by their latest read, Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist — proposes the group finally does what they planned to do 40-odd years ago: fly to Italy for a bachelorette trip.
They put up the usual excuses — can’t leave the bedridden husband behind, can’t leave the cat home alone, can’t leave the new fiancé immediately after getting engaged to him — but a series of fateful coincidences straight out of The Alchemist itself inevitably thrust the crew into their dream Italian vacation. Amusing hijinx abound as the ladies shop for wedding dresses, gaze at elegant artwork, consume luxurious meals and desserts, and get wine-drunk morning, noon, and night in a variety of gorgeous locations. As the week progresses, some hard truths begin to surface: Does Sharon actually want to be retired? Is Carol too scared of death to live her life to the fullest? Can Diane truly commit herself to another man when she’s still grieving her husband? And is marriage really the right path for Vivian?
The first film focused on the foursome’s collective sexual reawakening triggered by a reading of the Fifty Shades trilogy, but The Alchemist ignites considerably fewer carnal desires while the group is off in Italia. (Especially with three-fourths of the squad in serious, committed relationships with men some 6,000 miles away.) Instead, the theme of this Book Club meeting is fate. As such, the sequel is markedly less raunchy than the first. Nevertheless, it finds ways to push its PG-13 rating — even though they certainly could have gone for the R, seeing as the only kids under 17 buying tickets to this are the ones trying to sneak into John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) or Evil Dead Rise (2023) playing in the next auditorium over. Still, on a scale from Sex and the City (1998-2004) on HBO to Sex and the City reruns on cable, the humor decidedly skews toward the latter. (And, for the record, Diane’s a Carrie, Carol’s a Charlotte, Sharon’s a Miranda, and Vivian’s a Samantha.)
Would it be critical malpractice to review this sequel without noting the sheer prowess of the cast? It feels like it might be. Just to be safe: Everyone is exactly as serviceable as expected. Even Keaton would concede that the movie is merely fine. (She did what she could, sort of.) These legends probably aren’t ashamed to admit they have better projects to offer in nearly every decade since the 1970s. There’s even some crossover: Before playing boyfriend and girlfriend, Keaton and García were aunt and nephew in The Godfather Part III (1990), and Nelson has played the husband to at least a couple of these women by now. Alas, if the only choice for a septuagenarian is a Taylor Sheridan Paramount+ series, some Multiverse of Mediocrity legacy casting, or one of these treacly ensemble comedies, the superior option is obviously the third. Speaking of which, a Book Club threequel is not just a want — at this point, it’s an absolute necessity. Complete the trilogy, Holderman. Book Club: Chapter 3 — Parabellum when?
Book Club: The Next Chapter opens in theaters everywhere on Friday, May 12.
