THE FIRST WIVES CLUB . Directed by Hugh Wilson; written by Robert Harling; produced by Scott Rudin for Paramount. Starring Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton. Rated PG (some sexual references and a little vulgarity)
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The First Wives Club, for the most part, rises above the cheap-shot revenge saga that the title makes you expect. Partly due to some deft plotting, and partly due to an enthusiastic trio of stars, it turns into rather a nice little entertainment with a heart, and well worth an afternoon or evening at the movies.
A brief scene set in 1969 introduces us to four graduating college buddies that pledge to be friends for life. Next, however, we see one of the young women grown up (Stockard Channing) into a lonely, depressed new divorcee. She can't cope with her husband's leaving her and ends up jumping (off-screen) to her death from her penthouse apartment.
The remaining three women from the college friendship haven't kept up with each other, either, but meet again at their friend's funeral. They find they have a lot in common, in spite of having taken different roads to midlife: all three have either recently, or are in the process of being, left by their husbands for younger women.
Finding solidarity in their renewed friendship, the three fashion an exquisite revenge upon their exes. Granted, some of the action is predictably slapstick, and most, if not all, of the humor occurs at the expense of the hapless men. And it's a wee bit hard to identify with such obviously well-heeled characters.
But the pacing is cheerfully brisk (except for a few spots that drag a bit). And the performers, especially Midler, Hawn and Keaton, obviously had such a good time making the picture that it's easy to overlook its flaws. Fun like that can't be faked and it tends to be contagious.
Then there's that matter of heart. The best thing the scriptwriter did was to kill off one of the group of friends at the beginning. By never quite forgetting what happened to her, and by finally turning their revenge into a fitting monument to her memory, the "First Wives Club" rises above simple husband- and second-wife-bashing and makes a better entertainment in the process.
October 9, 1996