The First Wives Club

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source: The First Wives Club

I found this movie frustrating. I read Olivia Goldsmith's novel and found it deep, emotional, and justified in its revenge. The novel involves much deeper issues, like a father taking money from his retarded daughter, a man who beat his wife and forced her to allow their daughter to die following an accident, a man who refuses to support his children, et cetera. This movie focuses on petty revenge because they are not happy with being discarded for twenty year olds. It has NONE of the book's depth, characters, or deep emotional satisfaction in revenge. It has nothing more than cheap satisfaction and cheap revenge. I watched it once and would never look at it again.

If you are a man-hating feminist who has read every word of Susan Brownmiller, Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin and hung on every syllable of their writings as though they were incandescent truth, have I ever got a film for you! First of all, I did not go to see this movie about three women who plot revenge on their husbands for having committed the unspeakable crime of leaving them for younger women, or rent it. It happened to have been playing on a tour bus I was on, and try as I might, I could not ignore it. I have resolved on the basis of this movie never to ride another tour bus if any movies whose titles or content I do not know in advance are playing. I found this a thoroughly disagreeable film. Looking at it, I found myself thinking of a review by the late Richard Grenier of the movie M*A*S*H. Writing in the October 1981 issue of Commentary, Mr. Grenier said: "...I have never watched an ostensible comedy with such stony grimness..., and this for the simple reason that I found it to be inspired by no humor..., but entirely by cruelty, malice and an inordinate craving to humiliate. It would have been like laughing at a dog running frantically in circles, driven mad by a tin can some boys had tied to his tail. And also being asked to admire the boys." As noted, the center of this film is the relationship between three women (Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton) whose husbands each leave them for younger women, which in the context of this film is the unpardonable sin. The heart of the film is their elaborate revenge plots, all of which seem wildly disproportionate - rather like setting an arson fire to a hobby shop that sells you a model airplane kit with parts missing. Continuing from Mr. Grenier: "What makes (the movie) even more repellent is that the torment our heroes inflict on their adversaries is administered so smugly, with an air of overweening sanctimony, as if anyone who stands in their way deserves what he gets." But enough. I have wasted too much time on this ridiculous film already. Let me close with one final Grenier quote, which applies perfectly here: "...every foot of (this film is) marked by...smug hooliganism.... Its most essential trait is the complacent assumption that if one is in the right...one can commit any brutality, any cruelty, any humiliation. If one is right, human dignity no longer applies."

OK, I know this is a chick flick and I am anatomically incorrect. Still, I had high hopes for First Wives Club until about half way through. It looked like it was headed towards over-the-top farce like The Jerk or Adventures In Babysitting. Then it detoured and tried to be "important". Very few films can succeed at both. Willing suspense of disbelief works in a farce, but "important" movies need a coherent plot. The plot and the comedy both die midway, leaving us to wait for a painfully trite conclusion. At least that's the way this non-chick saw it.

If you are not familiar with "Birth Of A Nation", it's a classic silent film in which the Ku Klux Klan is regarded as heroes saving the purity of man from the "evil" negroes. It was a clearly horrid lie that was taken as truth by the devilish film. Now comes along "The First Wives Club", and equally shocking and appauling film which essentially outlines all males and philandering scumbags and the womens job to destroy their lives. Now, the characters in this film get what the asked for, they are all exceptionally sleazy, but it works as a clear political/social statement that all men are evil. I was disgusted by this putrid film, it could have least be entertaining. Its hateful vengeance was weighted with idiotic jokes, a predictable storyline, and an utterly revolting and asinine closing musical sequence that made me suicidal. Avoid this filthy film at all costs, unless you want to feel really bad about human kind in general.

Like Nine to Five, First Wives Club purports to be making a statement - albeit in comedy mode - about a serious feminist issue, but like that movie is simply an opportunity to portray women getting back at men who have taken advantage of them - and why not?! While the film may have little practical application to the majority of women who are "traded in" for newer models, but whose men are not as well heeled as the husbands in this film, it does provide them with 100 minutes of escapist entertainment from three great American actresses - OK Bette Midler may not be the best actress in the world but she's certainly hugely entertaining. Midler plays one of three 60s college friends, who meet 25 years later and find that they've each been deserted - her businessman ex-hubby keeps her short of cash while buying skimpy designer dresses for his skimpy girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker). The other two in the triumvirate are Diane Keaton as a diffident door-mat, and Goldie Hawn as an alcoholic and facelifted filmstar. But this is one movie where there is no doubt about the characters undergoing an "arc" during its course, and hardly anyone emerges unaltered. Along the way, there are lots of laughs, a few tears, and an unforgettable rendition of You Don't Own Me. Elsewhere on IMDb, some ungenerous souls have used the word hysterical to describe this movie; hysterically funny is nearer the mark.

This is a silly movie with plenty of entertaining comedy. Any male-bashing in it is clearly intended in good fun, even if it's dead serious for the characters. I found absolutely nothing offensive about this film, recognizing it for the light-hearted fun it is. A lot of men ARE scum. This just isn't the sort of comedy where generalizations and stereotypes are dangerous and offensive. In contrast, I was rather frustrated by Waiting to Exhale, because I felt it was too serious in its male-bashing. The women in First Wives Club seemed clever and delightfully devious, whereas the women in Waiting to Exhale seemed to prefer to sit around discussing how evil men are and plotting bits of petty revenge that showed how superior they are, not to mention setting fire to their husbands' property. First Wives Club takes a more constructive and intelligent approach to the problem and does so with much hilarity. I don't see how anyone can be offended by something as fun as this. I also find a comparison to Birth of a Nation to be very stretched, particularly since the attitudes in First Wives Club are not as dangerous, and, as I have reiterated several times, they are not intended to be serious. Overall, I would rate this film at least a seven.