Book Club: The Next Chapter – A Cute Follow-Up (Early Review)

Book Club: The Next Chapter is a sequel to the surprise 2018 box office hit Book Club and reunites it’s four screen legends (Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergan, and Mary Steenburgen). Picking up several years after the original film, Vivian (Fonda) announces her engagement to Arthur (Don Johnson) and the four friends decide to take a bachelorette trip to Italy in order to celebrate the soon to be bride. While there, things quickly go off the rails as their planned relaxing vacation turned into a cross-country adventure that none of them anticipated or will ever forget. The end result is a perfectly harmless and cute sequel that its target audience will absolutely love. It does suffer from diminishing returns and isn’t quite as enjoyable as the original film but is still a perfectly okay follow-up.

Like the first film, this entry is very light on plot, features very little stakes and is mostly an exercise for its four leads to have fun within its Italian setting. Since that approach worked well in the first film, why change it here? In the end, Book Club: The Next Chapter sees Keaton, Fonda, Bergen, and Steenburgen all slip right back into the roles of Diane, Vivian, Sharron, and Carol seamlessly while their excellent chemistry remains. These four ladies feel like genuine real-life friends, and they make the film infinitely more enjoyable because of how well they work together. Meanwhile, the Italian countryside makes for a nice backdrop and it is also nice that the film doesn’t try to follow the exact same formula as the original and actually does something different unlike a lot of other comedy sequels in recent memory.

Where Book Club: The Next Chapter falls short in matching its predecessor is the dull and dragging middle portion of the film. It actually starts off well enough and is more akin to what one would expect out of the sequel. However, a shift in tone causes the film to lose a lot of steam. Ultimately, a film like this one really shines when it is focusing more on the comedic side of things. This shift is eventually rectified, leading to what was easily the best part of the film which ended things on strong note. For a majority of the running time, lacked much of the same laughs, heart, or charm as the original, but the third act righted the ship and delivered pretty much everything audiences loved about the first film.

One of the main appeals about the first film apart from its four leads was the male supporting cast consisting of Johnson, Andy Garcia, Craig T. Nelson, and Richard Dreyfuss. All but Dreyfuss return for this sequel, but the other three have far less screen time. While their roles in this sequel make perfect narrative sense, but to be honest, their presence is missed at times. Though none of the characters arcs or storylines are ground-breaking by any means, they’re what many would expect for the most part what audiences would expect and still get the job done. However Keaton is surprisingly given very little to do and feels sidelined for a majority of the film despite getting top billing and was arguably the central focus of the first film. It technically also makes sense from a narrative perspective but it’s a bit of a shame seeing Keaton’s character not get much focus aside from a minimal subplot that kind of felt shoehorned in.

At the end of the day, Book Club: The Next Chapter is perfectly fine and very cute for what it is. While it doesn’t quite capture the same magic or charm of the original, it is still a decent enough follow-up that audiences will likely enjoy just as much as the first. If the film does well financially, the Book Club franchise may very likely get the trilogy treatment. Honestly, here’s hoping it does happen because it’s simply nice to see these four screen legends have fun and enjoy themselves on screen.

still courtesy of Focus Features

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/