THE FIRST WIVES CLUB (1996) **1/2 Chick flick for...ah'm....chicks....of a certain age. Demographic target: about ten years older than the "46" depicted by forever effervescent Goldie Hawn (already on the wrong side of 50 here, but you could still cast her as a teenager)...setting up the wonderful psychological subtext that if it can even happen to someone as lovely as Goldie, or as talented as Bette Midler, or as just so darn good as Diane Keaton....how could there be any shame in getting dumped by a dumb husband for an air-headed skinny younger woman? It delivers the message well, and backs it up, and is fairly entertaining all the while...but the moving bits, for me, had more to do with the actresses than the characters. The throwaway lines, and the theatrical diversions from the plot, and just thinking of them on a set having fun and acting like this... After some gloriously Lichtenstein opening credits Stockard Channing sets it all up with a very strong scene, and Dan Hedaya and Philip Bosco effectively represent that there really is some slight hope for male-kind, after all.
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