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Book Club | 2018 | PG-13 | - 5.2.5

Four friends in their late sixties (Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen) are dissatisfied with their romantic relationships and when their book club reads "Fifty Shades of Grey" they develop new ideas about sex and romance. However, beyond love the women also find themselves involved in comic circumstances. Also with Craig T. Nelson, Don Johnson and Andy Garcia. Directed by Bill Holderman. One line of dialogue is spoken in another language with English subtitles. [1:43]

SEX/NUDITY 5 - A man hugs a woman beside her parked car and asks if he can kiss her, and she kisses him passionately and the scene cuts to the man exiting the back seat of the car through the rear passenger door, disheveled and with lipstick on his face; the woman puts her head out the open door, her hair mussed, and the man hands her a body shaper, asking, "Is this yours?" (sex is implied).
 A wife places a Viagra tablet into her husband's beverage in a restaurant and when he drives home he shouts at her about it and she asks, "How does it feel?" and he yells, "Hard!" as she grabs his groin several times, making him swerve; when a police officer stops them and the man exits the car, we see a huge erection in his trousers and the officer stares as she shines her flashlight on the erection, tells the man to enjoy his evening, winks and smiles at the wife and says, "You too!" (no sex is seen). A clothed man with a large erection (after being given Viagra) hits it on a kitchen wall, grunting in pain.
 A clothed man lies on top of a clothed woman on an air mattress and kisses her several times, and then he turns over and they both fall asleep. A man and a woman kiss passionately for several seconds in close-up in three scenes and it is implied that the woman is moving into the man's house. A woman on an airplane falls into the lap of a man who puts his hand on her buttocks. An older woman falls asleep wit her head lying back on the lap of a man and he smiles. A woman says that clothing should be sexy, dozens of times. Four women form a book club and read "Fear of Flying" in their 20s and "Fifty Shades of Grey" in their late 60s; reading the latter book, we see each woman grimace or giggle and one of the women, shoulders bare while receiving a massage, reads to herself and says quietly, "Oh my God, yes," and another of the women tells the other three that she liked the part about a man sneaking a woman off to a boathouse for sex.
 A woman puts on a tight, mini-skirted waitress uniform from her youth (the hemline ends mid-thigh and we can see the outline of her breasts), goes to the garage where her husband is standing on a ladder, she stands by the ladder with her face near his groin, smiling, and she asks, "Do I not turn you on anymore?"; he says he is old and does not want to talk about it and is happy to fall asleep next to her each night, and then he talks about his motorcycle being a beautiful woman and his wife becomes upset as the scene ends. A woman goes on a date with a man and although they do not have sex, she receives a package the next day with a note that says, "Next time, we should use protection"; the note is with a raincoat (suggesting use of a condom and sex on their next date) and she smiles. A woman on her first blind date tells a man, "I do have the power to put you in handcuffs" and the man laughs. A husband and his wife argue in their yard about lack of sex in their relationship since he retired and she says their doctor asked her, "Does he still pleasure himself?" and he shouts at her and she shouts, "I want to have sex!" causing another man and woman walking by to stop and stare at them for a few seconds.
 We hear that a woman's husband began dating a much younger woman after their divorce and will marry the younger woman. A woman tells another woman that she avoids relationships with men because she does not want a man to get tired of her and leave her for a younger woman. A woman says that a man has a cute tush. A woman joins an online dating site, cancels her membership after two dates, but reactivates her account later.
 A man peels a banana and describes his motorcycle as a beautiful girl to four women, who smile and he says he wants to stroke the cycle's chassis and slap some wax on her saddle as the women snicker. A woman is shown reading "Fifty Shades of Grey" and a man asks her what she is reading and she says, "Moby Dick"; the man comments about the size of Christian Grey's genitals and she giggles. A woman at a veterinarian's office is worried about her cat and the vet says it is a "lethargic pussy" causing the woman to do a double take, thinking this is a sexual comment. A woman complains that her husband will not have sex with her. A woman says, "Let's lube up those bikes and get riding again" (implying have sex again). A woman tells another woman that old people and sex are like a bunch of rabbits on Benadryl (willing, but too sleepy to have sex). A woman says that an older widow can now have sex with someone who is not an accountant. A woman tells another woman that she is too enmeshed with her adult daughters and might try to breastfeed their new babies when they have them. A judge looks at an online dating site in her chambers and when her male clerk enters and hears, "Man of your dreams," he looks embarrassed and leaves quickly. A woman describes her first kiss in sixth grade, saying she will never forget how the boy held her face with both hands and made her feel special.
 A man in a photo has a climbing rope wound around his shoulders, but it is also wound around the bulge in his knee-shorts to emphasize his genitals. A photo of a woman wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt features the outlines of her nipples. A clothed woman turns sideways and lifts her bosom with her hands twice. Two featureless mannequins are shown wearing camisoles and underwear in a lingerie shop; another mannequin is wearing a corset that bares the breasts (we see no nipples). A woman comes out of a dressing room wearing a long body shaper wound around her neck under a loose red dress and asks two other women to cut her out of it as the scene ends. A woman wears a clingy, sleeveless knee-length dress (cleavage shows in a rounded neckline). A woman wears tight-fitting, sleeveless and deeply cut dresses that reveal significant cleavage that bounces in a couple of scenes. A woman wears a long sleeveless and V-necked gown (cleavage is seen) with long opera gloves as she tap dances on a stage, removes the gloves, and swings them around like an exotic dancer as she laughs. A few scenes include women wearing low-cut blouses and dresses that reveal moderate cleavage, along with wrinkles at the throat and between the breasts. A woman wears over-the-knee boots that reveal bare lower-to-mid-thighs. A woman wears a long opaque nightgown that reveals cleavage in the V-neck.
 A man presents his wife with a set of earplugs called "Eargasms" to use at night so she won't hear him snore in bed; one scene features him in bed under covers snoring as she sits in long pajamas and looks at him sadly.

VIOLENCE/GORE 2 - Two women and a man argue with a police officer about the whereabouts of the mother of the women and the officer takes the people to a home where the mother is lying on an inflated raft in the shape of a swan in a swimming pool with an older man (both are dressed and no sex or kissing is shown); the women demand to know what is going on, the man on the raft falls into the pool and the woman in the pool climbs onto the patio where her two daughters shout at her and force her into their car and take her away as the man looks on sadly. A pregnant woman shouts at her husband in a few scenes, she slaps him on the arms and in one of the scenes he calls out, "You're hormonal!"
 A man on a plane teases a woman who is afraid of flying and she tells him that her husband died in a plane crash a year before; the plane makes a loud noise and the woman grabs the man's groin twice instead of his arm. A woman on a plane is summoned to the cockpit where she finds a man she knows is the pilot and he secretly sets off a plane-crash alarm to startle her and she panics; he keeps asking for a date and says he will not fix the plane until she says yes, and when she accepts he turns off the alarm and she looks peeved.
 A husband and his wife argue and shout in several scenes. A woman shouts at her two adult daughters and tells them to stop reminding her of high blood pressure risks and the dangers of senior citizens driving. A pregnant woman argues with her husband several times (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details).
 An older woman joins an online dating site and accidentally takes three pictures of herself with a goopy cream masque on her face; she is grimacing wildly in all three shots.

LANGUAGE 5 - About 2 F-words and 1 muffled F-word, 18 sexual references, 7 anatomical terms, 8 mild obscenities, name-calling (crazy, fool, old, tartlet, stupid, absurd, delicate), exclamations (wow, whoa, shoot, oh my goodness, my gosh, shut-up) , 37 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Oh God, God Dang It, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, God Forbid, Holy Shit).

SUBSTANCE USE - A woman shows another woman a bottle of blue pills saying it is Viagra and the second woman takes the bottle (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details), and a woman on a plane swallows an unknown pill because she is fearful of flying and when she giggles a man beside her says that she must be feeling the effects of the pill. The film includes many scenes with alcohol and several scenes show four older women drinking wine at a home, four women drink wine and the scene cuts to later and when we see three empty wine bottles on a table beside a nearly-empty bottle of vodka, four women drink glasses of wine alone at home in a couple of scenes, a woman on a rooftop holds a glass of wine, a woman on a rooftop holds a martini and a man holds another cocktail, a bottle of vodka is seen on a restaurant prep table and three women drink a toast with short glasses of vodka, a woman holds a cocktail at a lounge bar where we also see men and women drinking cocktails and glasses of whiskey as well as wine, men and women at a party hold beer bottles and mixed drinks as well as wine, a man and a woman at a restaurant drink wine at one table while a man drinks from a short glass of whiskey at another table, and many tables of diners at a talent show hold glasses of wine (no one is seen drinking).

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Aging, dating and sex among senior citizens, Viagra use, alcohol use, divorce, adult children's attitudes toward aging parents, women's liberation, multiple sex partners, unwed pregnancy, online dating sites, relationships, taking risks, heartbreak, love, respect, commitment, fear of flying, happiness.

MESSAGE - Senior citizens can still enjoy love, sex, and committed relationships and everyone deserves these things.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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