“The Fabulous Four” might feel like a series of math problems that don’t quite add up, but it’s still an enjoyable time at the movies — especially if you choose to gobble down gummies at the same rate as the “geriatric” cast of Jocelyn Moorhouse’s raucous comedy.
“The Fabulous Four” has already neatly established its outrageous storyline by way of a peppy trailer that laid out all the big beats. Bette Midler is a bride again just a few months after losing her husband, so she asks her besties (played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, Megan Mullally, and Susan Sarandon) to travel to Key West for her nuptials to Bradley, whom none of them have met before.
Easy math so far: Four friends, one groom. Well, not quite.
It turns out that workaholic heart surgeon Louise (Sarandon) has avoided her former roommate and college pal Marilyn (Midler) for decades after Marilyn married Louise’s ex (he’s now dead, hence Marilyn’s second marriage to the elusive Bradley). Of course, Louise wouldn’t go to Marilyn’s second wedding: she wasn’t even asked to go to her first, what with Marilyn stealing her boyfriend and eloping with him. It then comes down to marijuana farmer Kitty (Ralph) and famous rock star (yes, it is just as cringe as it sounds) Alice (Mullally) to lure Louise to Florida under the false pretense that … she won a six-fingered (-toed? -pawed?) cat from Hemingway House in Key West.
Louise can fix her patients’ hearts, but what about her own?! Neither Marilyn nor Louise know that they will be reunited just in time for Marilyn’s big day, but that’s no matter: Kitty and Alice have it all under control. Kind of.
Of course, their own lives are messes, too. Kitty’s daughter is a born-again Christian and claims that Kitty is “going to Hell” for growing drugs. Alice, meanwhile, hides said drugs up her vagina while boarding the flight to Florida. Oh, and Louise carries around an empty cat carrier onboard and somehow befriends millennial TikTokers on the plane.
So now it’s four friends, one alive groom, one dead husband, 24 toes, and three youngsters who are basically just there for exposition — and to scold Marilyn for never apologizing for stealing Louise’s man.
Some more math that doesn’t quite add up: The characters are supposedly seventy-ish years old, but Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly’s script treats them like they’ve all got one foot in the grave, a comedic impulse that completely fails to square with the vitality that Sarandon, Middler, and the rest of the cast bring to their roles. (Or, for that matter, the fact that Mullally is a decade younger than her co-stars). The constant stream of jokes about incontinence and nursing homes — the latter delivered by Kitty’s daughter, who looks maybe five years younger than Sheryl Lee Ralph — almost makes it feel as if the movie was miscast, even if the actresses are the best things about it.
These are not old women, despite how many times “The Fabulous Four” tells us they are.
But no one is too old to find love. While in Key West, Louise bumps into two eligible men: Ted (Bruce Greenwood), and a boat captain whose character may or may not have been given a name (Timothy V. Murphy). Anyways, Louise is letting her hair down more and more — literally, it keeps falling out of her massive hair clip — and with the help of some CBD treats starts to enjoy herself for once. Marilyn is getting more and more irritating, meanwhile, leading audiences to believe that Louise really is the jilted party here. Marilyn stole her man. Marilyn is a bitch and knows it.
But is Marilyn really wrong? Was it true love, or did she calculatedly backstab her bestie Louise? We’re given both answers and — you guessed it — neither add up. And we haven’t even thrown into the equation the fifth friend: Ernest Hemingway, whose spirit looms so large over this movie that he probably deserves to share top billing.
Louise references the “A Farewell to Arms” writer in at least every other line of dialogue, and both of her would-be love interests also quote the iconic author with bizarre regularity. If not for Mullally’s sharp improvisation and Ralph’s grounded commitment to the film‘s dramatic stakes, this whole movie would feel like a delirious fever dream of some kind (an impression cemented by the fact that it features two different sing-alongs to “I Can See Clearly Now” and a shoehorned gay acceptance storyline about Kitty’s stripper grandson).
Midler recently told IndieWire that a sequel to “The First Wives Club” might still be a possibility, and perhaps “The Fabulous Four” is best enjoyed as a murky placeholder to watch in the meantime, perhaps on your next flight to a septuagenarian wedding. Your mileage may vary, but we recommend that you try not to make sense of it — just sit back and enjoy the trip.
Rating: C
A Bleecker Street release, “The Fabulous Four” will hit theaters on Friday, July 26.
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