Stale jokes and cringe-inducing sight gags punctuate this creaky romantic comedy.

| Mar 16, 2020

There's a great sense of camaraderie in it all but it could have been so much better with a script that rejected the obvious.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 14, 2018

To have four female actors of this calibre in the one place and not give them something less mediocre is a lost opportunity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 8, 2018

It's great to see these veterans working in major roles, but a shame that the characters they play aren't more interesting.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 24, 2018

It's not so much the reductive message that the path to happiness must be walked alongside a man; more that the writing is wincingly awful.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 3, 2018

Yes, we desperately, as an audience, need this film. Just not, well, this one. Because it's rubbish.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Jun 1, 2018

Fonda delivers her dialogue as if tonguing pieces of rancid fish onto the back of her fork. She remains dignified. But she clearly doesn't want this stuff sitting in her mouth for too long.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 31, 2018

Except for one good, weirdly rogue joke about a Werner Herzog documentary, there's almost nothing to be said for this mouldy old script.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 31, 2018

It's a film to remind you that the comedy confectionery of Nora Ephron or perhaps Nancy Meyers is not that easy to replicate, and you can be left with all of the guilt and none of the pleasure.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 31, 2018

What's most depressing is that such a glittering line-up of Oscar talent is reduced to working with such floppy material.

| Original Score: 1/5 | May 31, 2018

When critics look back at the high points in the glittering careers of Fonda, Keaton et al, Book Club is a movie they will leap over as quickly as possible.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 30, 2018

The film might not be embarrassing if it had wit, or arch if it had art. With neither it is both.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 30, 2018

It started stronger than I expected it to, but as soon as that plot fizzles away, you still have half a movie left with nowhere to go.

| Original Score: C | May 24, 2018

Book Club is an airy dinner conversation set before a spectacular, disposable backdrop, a sure-fire bet to be the breeziest two hours you spend in the theater this summer.

| May 21, 2018

Even though it follows the map of every romcom before it, Holderman's film still offers the too-rare chance to marvel at just how good these women are at their craft, how easily they inhabit the bodies and lives of other people.

| May 19, 2018

In an industry that defines "mature audiences" as anyone old enough to vote, a movie centered entirely on women over 65 - a sex comedy, no less - feels like some kind of small Hollywood miracle.

| Original Score: B | May 18, 2018

Book Club completely delivers on the promise of its trailer. Which is to say, if it looks appealing to you, you will probably love it.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 18, 2018

You can like Book Club or hate it, but you can't argue with the fact that Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen have real marquee value.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 18, 2018

Everyone who goes to this movie will leave satisfied, mostly just because it exists.

| May 18, 2018

In Holderman's ineffectual hands, this leads to comedy so tired and morals so sentimental it's sometimes hard to keep awake in Book Club.

| Original Score: 1/4 | May 18, 2018