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Starring: Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, Diane Keaton
Director: Hugh Wilson
Running Time: 103 mins
The First Wives Club is an American film about three divorced women who club together to seek revenge on their husbands, all of whom left them for younger women.
Centred around the terrific trio of Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, The First Wives Club delights with a sharp, charismatic and often devilishly dark story, full of laughs and memorable moments from start to finish.
There’s a lot to love about this movie, but first things first, let’s talk about how it stacks up in comparison to a very similar dark comedy: Nine To Five.
For one, the lead trio of Hawn, Midler and Keaton are often just as much fun (if not sometimes even more) as Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in Nine To Five.
While Fonda, Tomlin and Parton worked brilliantly together, it’s fair to say that each of their characters fit into one of the three stereotypical personalities, whereas the dynamic between Hawn, Midler and Keaton is much more balanced.
All three, while with their own differences and quirks, are as competent and scheming as one another, and that makes them a really entertaining and likeably diabolical team, seeking revenge on their self-important ex-husbands.
All three are hugely charismatic from start to finish, with Bette Midler in particular really giving it her all as she so often does. The energy and fun factor of the lead trio is brilliantly infectious, and it makes The First Wives Club just as memorably entertaining as Nine To Five throughout.
Comparatively, however, this film doesn’t quite have the same brilliantly dark humour and the ’80s classic. There’s certainly a devilish element to the story that’s a lot of fun to watch, but the women in this film feel a lot more on top of their plans than is the case in Nine To Five, when the original scheme gets wildly out of hand.
As a result, The First Wives Club never sparks the big, hilarious laughs that Nine To Five does, but its brilliant energy throughout makes it immensely enjoyable all the same, coupled with sharp dialogue and a fun-loving brand of darker comedy.
Overall, I had a heap of fun with The First Wives Club. Though not quite on the level of Nine To Five, it’s an enormously enjoyable film that delivers good laughs from start to finish on account of a sharp screenplay and three fantastic lead performances from Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton. So, that’s why I’m giving it a 7.6.
