The First Wives Club Reviews

The First Wives Club is a great comedy movie about three middle-aged women who get dumped by there husbands for younger women. The angry wives, who were the ones who got there husbands where they are today, are of course very angry and set out a very successful and cunning plan to get revenge on there exes.

This movie features such a brilliant cast with the likes of the brilliant, Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Elizabeth Berkley, Sarah Jessica Parker and Stockard Channing all starring here.

The First Wives Club is a brilliant, fun, comedy movie which is just great all the way through. I'd definitely recommend this movie to anyone and I give it a 10/10.

I wasn’t expecting much from this flick but since there was a nice cast, I thought I should check it out anyway. And, indeed, the cast was pretty impressive (Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Maggie Smith, Dan Hedaya , Sarah Jessica Parker, Stockard Channing, Elizabeth Berkley, Marcia Gay Harden, Rob Reiner, Timothy Olyphant, J.K. Simmons, Heather Locklear) and it was pretty obvious that the 3 lead actress had a blast with this flick. As a matter of fact, it was actually a box-office success (which was something I didn’t expect) and all three main cast members wanted to make a sequel but the studio was not really interested. Anyway, personally, I thought the whole thing was rather lame. Indeed, even though there were a (very) few funny moments, it was just eventually really tedious to watch. For example, Diane Keaton goes to a shrink to solve her marriage issues and later on she finds out that her counselor is actually sleeping with her husband. Not only was it not funny at all but it was also a very old and tired joke. The rest of the movie was eventually pretty much in the same spirit : uninspired, lazy and just plain boring. It’s too bad because the whole thing had some potential, especially with such an interesting cast. To conclude, it is a very average comedy and it is not really worth a look, even if you like the genre.

The First Wives Club is not a great film, but it is a great piece of cinematic junk food. There’s nothing wrong with something a little too fatty or too sugary for you every so often. The First Wives Club has numerous actors and actresses that I admire involved, all of whom seem to be having a good time, and it is hard to begrudge them a little fun. Among the three major stars they have earned two Academy Awards out of eight nominations, not to mention the Emmy, Grammy and Tony awards they have either been nominated for or won. Why not just sit back and enjoy them being silly for an hour and a half?

The film throws together enough of a loose plot to string together a madcap, zany might be the better word for it, series of adventures for our three heroines to engage in. With each wife being left for a younger model by their dubious husbands, there is some fertile ground for comedy to be plowed. And plow it they do, taking hilariously bitter jabs at plastic surgery, ageism, sexism and the first wife syndrome. (A series of jokes about a daughter’s lesbianism strike an ugly chord. Being gay shouldn’t be a punchline used against your father, even if he did leave your mother for the psychiatrist.)

But Keaton, Midler, and especially Hawn, bite into their roles with relish. Each actress is allowed to poke fun at their public or filmic images. Keaton gets to play a variation on Annie Hall, just try to imagine what would happen if that character got married, had a kid and relocated to the suburbs. Now imagine that character in couple’s counseling and being left for the therapist. Midler gets to do her outsized, brash persona in the form of a Queens housewife. It works, and she even gets to sing and dance for a spell. But the best of the three is Hawn as a boozing, plastic surgery addicted former Academy Award winner whose career has spiraled downward into making schlocky sex obsessed “Skinemax” films. Her statement that Hollywood has three parts for women is incredibly apt. (For the record they include: babe, district attorney, Driving Miss Daisy.)

Could a better movie have been made out of this subject matter? Oh yes, and especially given the cast a great one could have resulted. A modern day The Women in a sense, but instead we have a movie that is great for Saturday afternoon entertainment. Say, you’re stuck at home on a Saturday afternoon and you feel like watching something fluffy, entertaining and harmless. The First Wives Club is perfect for that.