Movies
Boynton Beach Club
It is difficult to locate the director of Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan in this multicharacter romantic comedy (original title: The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club) that targets an audience of seniors and is accordingly toothless and bland. Rather than "targets," perhaps we should say "patronizes." Susan Seidelman, the director in question, is only in her early fifties (the marginal character of a Goth granddaughter forms a tenuous link to the past), but after the 1980s she fell below the radar into made-for-TV movies and direct-to-video. Desperately seeking Susan, indeed! Her most poignant moments here, quite independent of any plot machinations around elder singles in a Florida retirement community, come from the intercut stills of each of the actors in their salad days, testifying both to the natural ravages of time and to the elective disfigurements some people undergo to combat those ravages. Since some of the chosen clothes and hairdos are plainly intended as satirical, it's possible that some of the obvious surgeries are intended that way too. Dyan Cannon, Brenda Vaccaro, Sally Kellerman (no boob job for her -- see?), Renée Taylor, Len Cariou, a well-preserved Joseph Bologna, and Michael Nouri, the pup of the group, are among the specimens on exhibit. 2006.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R
