THE STORY – Lifelong friends travel to Key West, Fla., to be bridesmaids in the wedding of their college girlfriend, rekindling their sisterhood amid drinks and romance.
THE CAST – Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Bruce Greenwood, Timothy V. Murphy & Michael Bolton
THE TEAM – Jocelyn Moorhouse (Director), Ann Marie & Allison Jenna Milly (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 99 Minutes
Some of the greatest female love stories in film are platonic. Close friendships between women are integral, and the subject of friends traveling together adds an insightful layer to the dynamic. A change in scenery can strengthen, rekindle, or challenge relationships for better or worse. Girls trip films have seen an uptick in recent years with 2017’s “Girls Trip,” 2023’s double whammy of “Joy Ride” and “80 for Brady,” and now this year’s summer release, “The Fabulous Four.” Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, the film stars Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Megan Mullally as four lifelong friends who travel to Key West for a wedding celebration. “The Fabulous Four” is far from fabulous, with Midler and Sarandon having seen far more engaging trips with 1988’s “Beaches” and 1991’s “Thelma & Louise” respectively. Given the accomplished cast, one might expect an entertaining picture, but each faces an unfortunate challenge at nearly every turn. From the rough editing and odd direction to an undeveloped screenplay and forced sense of humor, “The Fabulous Four” sets up one roadblock after another without any improvement.
Marilyn (Midler), Lou (Sarandon), Kitty (Ralph), and Alice (Mullally) have known each other since college. The film’s opening montage gives a brief rundown of their characters. Marilyn is in her influencer era on TikTok, Lou is a cat-obsessed doctor, Kitty is a botanist who makes special weed gummies, and Alice works in the music industry. Their opposite personalities attract, presumably explaining why they still orbit around each other’s lives. The film fails to explore what exactly draws and holds them together. Instead, the story focuses on bad blood between two of the friends. Many years ago, Marilyn fell in love with and married the man Lou was seeing, a betrayal that still stings. Lou still holds a grudge for losing a potential romance and gaining a broken friendship. Marilyn hopes the two can reconnect and uses a wedding celebration in Key West as the perfect opportunity. A few months after losing her husband, Marilyn surprises everyone by getting engaged and wants the old college gang back together to be her bridesmaids. Kitty and Alice, knowing full well that Lou would never accept the invitation, coerce her into traveling. All hell breaks loose when Lou discovers the truth, making the girls’ trip a bumpy emotional ride ahead. Will she ever forgive Marilyn? Or is their friendship a lost cause?
Jocelyn Moorhouse is no stranger to the non-sensical. Her previous feature, “The Dressmaker,” a camp dark comedy about a couture seamstress with a vengeance, works in mysterious ways. Moorehouse’s directorial sensibility is peculiar and experimental, which works against the familiar breezy narrative of “The Fabulous Four.” A simple story about lifelong friends putting their past grievances aside is made surreal to the absolute extreme. Each plot development feels overtly dramatized, especially the recurring nightmare of Marilyn betraying Lou. Plus, some characters (Marilyn and Alice in particular) are exaggerated to a near caricature degree. “The Fabulous Four” egregiously coasts on the shine of a star-studded cast. However, there is only so much charisma the actors can bring to make insubstantial material feel worthwhile. One can easily tell that Sarandon, Ralph, Mullally, and especially Midler enjoyed each other’s company making this film. Still, their quality time comes at a cost, given such a middling outcome on-screen.
Co-written by Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly, the screenplay flirts between intendedly heartfelt and mischievous but struggles to excel at both tones. The result is a mess of different energies patched together. Attempts are made to explore the double standards of aging and how women are perceived as having less value as they grow older. Sarandon’s performance personifies this message to some extent. Lou is more cautious than her fun-loving friends, partly because of the hurt and disappointment harbored over the years. However, the potential for this thematic exploration is reduced mainly to one monologue in which Lou pleads that she still matters, regardless of how much time goes by. While Sarandon plays this moment with expected gravitas, the scene is a mere glimpse of a role (and a story) that could have been more interesting to engage with.
The silver lining of the film is its embrace of older women’s stories, which are increasingly more difficult to get financed. Each character is identified as the lead of their own life, rather than as the mother/grandmother figure. Unfortunately, the screenplay fails to explore the characters beyond at a glance. Not only does the writing lack nuance, but also enthusiasm in keeping the viewer entirely on board with this girls’ trip. Plus, the effort to engage with today’s culture through TikTok and fan cams has little resounding impact. Ultimately, the mismatched direction and writing make “The Fabulous Four” an oddly uninspiring and painfully flat experience. There is a sorely missed opportunity here in not pushing the unique talents of Midler, Sarandon, Ralph, and Mullally to their full potential, especially given the more mischievous elements of the story.
