There’s not much that makes me sadder than a film that doesn’t live up to its potential. The Fabulous Four stars an Oscar winner, another two time Oscar nominee, and two other Emmy winners.  These four women have enough nominations behind them to sink a ship, and yet none of their talents was enough to keep this movie afloat.  

Lou (Susan Sarandon) is a busy heart surgeon in a New York hospital.  She hasn’t a lot of time for anything other than her two cats, whom she adores.  She’s forced to keep up a gruelling schedule for fear she could lose her job, as she sees the aging doctors around her forced to retire.  So when friends from her college years, Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) and Alice (Megan Mullally) whisk her away for a weekend in Key West, they do so under the premise she has won a famous polydactyl cat from the Hemingway House.  It’s the only premise they can conjure to lure her away from her job for a couple of days. 

What Lou doesn’t know is that they’re actually taking her to her estranged best friend’s house.  Marilyn (Bette Midler) is marrying someone, giving Kitty and Alice the determination to make the two former friends reconcile before it’s too late. No one is getting any younger here, as we are made to remember many times.  What happens next is pretty well as predictable as you can imagine, even with an attempt at a twist when Bruce Greenwood’s character, Ted, comes into the mix.  

Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker) and written by Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly, I would love to sit here and say that this film is the beautiful and wonderful ode to female friendship that it wants to be.  Sadly, this is not the case.  In fact, I didn’t even find it terribly kind to its female characters.  

Lou is wonderfully portrayed as a surgeon, but alone after a college boyfriend broke her heart, she seemingly chose her career and cats instead.  Kitty is an independent, successful woman but her daughter can’t see her that way and wants to put her in an old age home despite the fact she is more than capable (and portrayed by someone who is barely retirement age).  Marilyn jumps right into a second marriage after her first husband dies as she doesn’t know how to be alone.  And Alice, the youngest of the group, is the artistic, wild one, but it’s demonstrated in her desire to sleep with any man who passes her way. 

Why is it that the only character in this film who seems to have it all together, can own a business, or ride a bike around town without comment or question of their age is Ted?  There’s nothing wrong with these paths in life if this is your choice, but it’s sad to see these tropes repeated on screen.  Again.

While Sarandon and Ralph do the best at trying to reel in the over-the-top antics, neither of them can save this melodramatic, campy attempt at a friendship comedy.  There’s even a concert by Michael Bolton right in the middle, and a concluding dance number to top things off. During that number, Sarandon has to dance with a cat that she clearly needs to scruff, as it too seemingly wants to leave the film in protest.  

There’s not much to recommend in The Fabulous Four.  In fact, I’d rather watch The Fantastic Four again, and it’s easy enough to confuse the titles.  There are films that have looked at enduring friendship and aging much more effectively.  There’s 2003’s Calendar Girls and 2011’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel to start.  I’ll even take 2018’s Book Club over this movie.  And if you want a film that takes on aging in the best way, look no further than one of my favourite films of this year, Thelma, starring now 94-year-old treasure, June Squibb.  There’s a way to display female friendship, and aging that isn’t cheesy and full of stereotypes.  The Fabulous Four just isn’t it, despite its cast and potential.