Book Club: A good read

Book Club (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and rather generously, for considerable sexual candor and some profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.18.18

Blend four accomplished actresses with a sharp script — particularly if laden with plenty of arch one-liners — and the results can’t help being delightful.

Sharon (Candice Bergen, left) is reluctant to take the "go for it" encouragement coming
from best friends Carol (Mary Steenbergen, center) and Vivian (Jane Fonda). At the same
time, all three are concerned about the romantic progress — or lack thereof — their
mutual friend Diane might be experiencing.

Such is the case with Book Club, a thoroughly entertaining showcase for stars Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen. The ribald premise invites — and delivers — a relentless stream of mischievously bawdy dialogue and clever double entendres, all courtesy of co-writers Erin Simms and Bill Holderman, the latter also making an accomplished directorial debut.

This film also is a game-changer for Simms, a once-busy actress making an equally noteworthy shift to writer/producer. (She shared behind-the-scenes credit with Holderman on 2015’s adaptation of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. This new film is much better.)

Book Club is another welcome entry in the Life Doesn’t End At 50 sub-genre of gentle romantic comedies, following in the recent footsteps of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and The Meddler. Simms and Holderman’s sweet and saucy script takes a perceptive poke at ill-advised expectations, unwarranted social conventions, and the silent resignation with which far too many people accept less than their fair slice of the romantic pie.

Diane (Keaton), recently widowed after 40 years of marriage, is regarded as just this side of a doddering invalid by her two well-meaning but insufferably condescending daughters (Alicia Silverstone and Katie Aselton). Vivian (Fonda), an enormously successful and wealthy hotel owner, has spent her life limiting male contact to short-term affairs with no strings attached.

Sharon (Bergen), a federal court judge, still hasn’t recovered from a decades-old divorce from ex-husband Tom (Ed Begley Jr.), who — twisting the knife even further — has just gotten engaged to a hotsy-totsy babe (Mircea Monroe, as Cheryl) who could be his granddaughter.

Carol (Steenburgen) hasn’t been able to rekindle the incandescent sexual spark that highlighted her 35-year marriage to Bruce (Craig T. Nelson), who has become withdrawn and aimless after his recent retirement.

The Art of Getting By: Does just fine

The Art of Getting By (2011) • View trailer for The Art of Getting By
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for sexual content, profanity, teen drinking and smoking, and thematic elements
By Derrick Bang


Motivation is an odd and elusive presence in our lives, and I often wonder why more people don’t suffer its absence.

Sure, we can cite personal drive and/or an awareness of responsibility — to family, friends and self — but what really makes us get up each morning with a willingness to tackle the new day?

The shy and withdrawn George (Freddie Highmore) doesn't understand why
Sally (Emma Roberts) suddenly is willing to hang out with him, but that's not
a bad thing. The trouble is, George hasn't the faintest notion of what to do next
with a pretty girl, just as he hasn't a clue how to handle life itself. And such
protracted inactivity can only lead to heartbreak...

George (Freddie Highmore), a New York high school senior, can’t find that intangible get-up-and-go. Part of the problem is fatalism: an awareness of overwhelmingly bad world events that render trigonometry homework rather insignificant by comparison. Additionally, George is crushingly lonely and has turned this isolation into a pose that rebuffs all meaningful contact, whether with peers at school or his mother and step-father at home.

In a word, George is the ultimate slacker, but with a twist: He clearly isn’t enjoying his indolence.

Writer/director Gavin Wiesen’s The Art of Getting By — which George has perfected — is a quiet, quirky little film: a sober character study of a lost soul who appears to have surrendered any willingness to seize his own self and give it a good shake. A diagnosis of clinical depression seems screamingly obvious, but Wiesen’s script never goes there; we simply wait for the moment when somewhere, somehow, George will experience the epiphany that will kick-start his enthusiasm for life, the universe and everything.

To be sure, at times Wiesen’s script plays like a lite version of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and suffers a bit for the comparison. Salinger’s book, although focused on Holden Caulfield, offered shrewd observations on the human condition; Wiesen’s film doesn’t explore much further than George’s condition.

It’s an odd role that could be off-putting if not handled properly. Lucky for us, then, that Highmore delivers just the right blend of earnest sensitivity and contrite resignation. Although he can’t be bothered to do his schoolwork, much to the growing vexation of his various teachers, George is always polite about his refusals. He’s not a “bad” kid in the usual sense; he’s simply ... lost.

Highmore, now a mature 19 years old, will be remembered as the engaging young actor who delivered such memorable performances in Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, August Rush and The Spiderwick Chronicles. Highmore grew up somewhere along the way; he still was a kid in 2008’s Spiderwick, yet here he is now, with the height and gangliness of near-adulthood.

With his acting chops quite intact, rest assured.

That’s crucial, because a single mis-step would transform George into an unlikable parasite: somebody wasting the very air he breathes. And yet this never happens; we sense an artistic soul waiting to burst forth, thanks to the complex and often provocative doodles with which he fills all his textbooks and classroom worksheets.

Cool, we think; art class must be a cathartic release each day. But even here, George can’t muster the enthusiasm to complete an actual assignment. His doodles may suggest talent — even his crusty art teacher senses this — but George hasn’t yet found his muse.