“Book Club – A new chapter”: Italy trip with small difficulties

“Book Club – A New Chapter”
Italy trip with small difficulties

In “Book Club – A New Chapter” there is a reunion with Hollywood legends Diane Keaton (77), Jane Fonda (85), Candice Bergen (76) and Mary Steenburgen (70). In the sequel to the comedy “Book Club – The best is yet to come” from 2018, the four-strong book club goes on a journey. In Italy, women not only experience La Dolce Vita, but also turn to their turbulent love lives.

“Book Club 2”: That’s what it’s about

After the Corona lockdown and book club video calls, hotel owner Vivian (Fonda) can finally hug her friends again – and bring them good news: the entrepreneur who is otherwise so shy about commitment has got engaged. This needs to be celebrated and so Diane (Keaton), Carol (Steenburgen) and Sharon (Bergen) decide to take Vivian on a bachelorette trip to Italy. The four had already vowed to travel to the country in their 20s, but never actually did.

And so begins the adventurous trip to Europe, on which the American women visibly enjoy the culture, the balmy summer nights with wine and pasta and shopping for Vivian’s wedding dress. From Rome to Venice to Tuscany, the four also experience a number of obstacles such as stolen luggage, a car breakdown or a turbulent encounter with the police. In the end, they also have to ask themselves questions about love and their future life, which they all try to answer in very different ways.

Four Hollywood icons in best ager comedy, but…

The film can exude the certain charm of bringing four such icons in leading roles together for a best-ager comedy to the big screen and letting the men step into the background as supporting actors this time, but the screenwriters Bill Holderman ( 46) and Erin Simms (46) could not fully exploit the potential. Although the women can be seen more often in common scenes compared to the first part with the journey, it is precisely in these that drive is often lacking and sluggish dialogues follow that don’t add anything to the big picture. Only Candice Bergen stands out as a retired judge, who stirs up the crowd with her dry humor and biting comments.

The floating plot with incidents that are dismissed as small problems or quickly solved in order to return to the ideal world, provide little excitement. Unfortunately, the viewer only dives into the really deep emotional world of the four women at the very end. In addition, the Italian clichés were dug deep into the box and nothing was left out in a striking American way, from Italo music to handsome police officers.

Conclusion

Anyone who would like to meet the four friends again, whose lives turned upside down after reading part one of “Fifty Shades of Grey” and is curious about how they have fared in the meantime, can certainly be enthusiastic about the sequel. Even those who, in view of the general holiday mood, would like to fall back on a feel-good film with a Mediterranean flair are in good hands with “Book Club – A New Chapter” – but they have to be prepared for some outlandish and exaggerated storylines and a large portion of kitsch.

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