The First Wives Club is superior cinema. On this, we can all agree. I know we can all agree because this morning I was emailing with Lainey and Emily, our site manager, and we’re all different ages, and yet, we all love The First Wives Club. It transcends generations, and remains popular with all ages today (Ariana Grande is a fan). Part of the allure of The First Wives Club is that it is about female friendship and how for women, our friendships often outlast our romantic relationships. And part of the allure is that it brings together three fantastic broads: Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, and Diane Keaton. Well guess what? Twenty-four years later, those fantastic broads are reuniting.
Midler, Hawn, and Keaton will re-team for Family Jewels, a movie about three women with the same ex-husband who spend a Christmas together after that man dies suddenly before the holiday; I guess this is more “wives club” than “first wives club”. It’s amazing that this iconic trio hasn’t worked together since The First Wives Club, but also not amazing because I’m sure that back then the success of Club was treated as a fluke and not something to replicate immediately ten times over. When women are successful in film, it’s an accident, but a man can have the most modest of successes and get a franchise. That hasn’t really changed, despite how we’re supposed to be more woke now than we were in the 1990s. (Hello, I’m mad about the reception of Birds of Prey while Shazam!, which was a VERY modest hit, is getting two sequels.) Anyway, the reunion of Midler, Hawn, and Keaton is good and wonderful, and better late than never. Now, let’s fade out on this week and enjoy one of the great scenes of CINEMA:
