Say what you will about 2018's Book Club, but at least it centered on the effect that reading a particular book had on the main characters' lives. There's barely a nod to reading of any kind in Book Club: The Next Chapter, which opens with stale gags about its senior citizen protagonists trying to connect over Zoom during the pandemic lockdown and doesn't get any fresher from there. The longtime friends played by Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Diane Keaton and Mary Steenburgen breeze through mentions of various notable recent bestsellers in a video-chat montage, before leaving books behind (along with any COVID precautions).
Instead, they pivot to celebrating the engagement of lifelong singleton Vivian (Fonda) by taking a group trip to Italy, fulfilling a promise they made to one another decades earlier. There are a few vague references to Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, but nothing like the fixation on Fifty Shades of Grey that defined the first movie. Even without Fifty Shades, these characters are still rather frisky, and director/co-writer Bill Holderman once again relies on lots of jokes about old people saying something mildly naughty.
The Next Chapter marginalizes the male characters who took up so much of the women's attention in the first movie, and while Don Johnson, Andy Garcia and Craig T. Nelson look a bit lost without anything useful to do, the movie is better off focusing on the core female friendship. The stars are clearly having a good time on their Italian vacation, even if they still aren't quite believable as people who've been friends since their college days. The conflicts are minor, but Holderman and co-writer Erin Simms attempt to provide some introspection for each member of the foursome.
Despite agreeing to marry her rekindled love Arthur (Johnson), Vivian is still reluctant to let go of her free-spirited ways. Diane (Keaton) is struggling with her own commitment issues, not sure about making things official with Mitchell (Garcia) while she's still holding onto the ashes of her late husband. Carol (Steenburgen) is feeling skittish after a health scare for her husband, Bruce (Nelson), and the pandemic-induced closure of her restaurant. Retired judge Sharon (Bergen) seems the most at ease, and she gets to have a fling with a handsome philosophy professor (Hugh Quarshie) while engaged in a good-natured feud with a local cop (Giancarlo Giannini) who seems to follow the women across the entire country.
These are all extremely low-stakes problems, and Holderman barely shrugs at their resolutions, while putting the characters through wan slapstick and filling the dialogue with weak double entendres. The pacing is choppy, haphazardly jumping from one subplot to another. Despite the lovely Italian sights, The Next Chapter has a flat, TV-travelogue look with about as much authenticity as the Italian-language covers of American pop songs on the soundtrack.
There's no sense of adventure, even in a wine-mom-friendly Under the Tuscan Sun mode. The characters might as well have stayed home and read a book about Italy, for all the genuine culture they get to encounter. Rarely has a movie shot on location felt more like something produced on a soundstage.
The biggest travesty of the Book Club movies is that with such a paucity of substantial roles for actresses of a certain age, the best these incredibly talented performers can get is playing one-dimensional characters in a warmed-over sitcom. Their charisma and skill shines through even with such subpar material, but the end result is more demoralizing than invigorating. It's a movie that coasts on lowered expectations, and then scarcely even lives up to those. ♦
BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER
