Louise, aka Lou, and Marilyn used to be the best of friends. They went through college together like the perfect yin and yang pair. Marilyn’s blonde bombshell pizzaz balanced Lou’s shy brilliance flawlessly.
Then those great pals moved into an apartment together after school and quickly met two other young women—Alice and Kitty—who had their own unique strengths and qualities. And just like that, where there were two wonderful friends, there were now four. The fabulous four.
They loved each other, celebrated one another’s victories, had each other’s backs. These young women were determined to be best friends forever.
And then … they weren’t.
Some forty-plus years later, the women have all gone their separate ways. Lou is now a respected surgeon. Kitty is a biologist turned marijuana-farming “earth mother.” Alice is a retired rock star still hanging on to her old sex, drugs and booze lifestyle. And Marilyn is a recent widow who’s addicted to TikTok.
Oh, and Marilyn is getting married again. And she wants her old friends to be there—even Lou, who has refused to speak to Marilyn in decades.
The betrayal that blew them all apart way back when was, well, way back when. So it’s high time that the former friends work things through. You know, bring back the fabulous.
Sure, it may take some definite hoop-jumping and a few well-turned lies to make it all happen. But fabulous friendship is worth it.
Lou and her friends aren’t always very nice to be around. But as the story unfolds, we see that they do indeed all have lovable qualities, and they care deeply for one another. The film makes it abundantly clear that “life is too short to hold grudges.” Marilyn and Lou apologize for past wrongs. And the women rekindle their friendship.
The film also encourages viewers to think about the choices we make that limit us personally rather than ones that help us live life to the fullest. It suggests there is much to enjoy, relish and embrace, even when we enter the later chapters of life.
Kitty’s grandchildren ask if she’s really going to hell for growing her cannabis products. Their mom said she was. We definitely see a strain between Kitty and her daughter, Leslie, who’s a Christian. Leslie states that her mother’s drug-focused business isn’t healthy. And Kitty makes several quips about Leslie’s church being a cult.
We also learn there was a falling out between Leslie and her adult son Nathan, who came out as gay. Kitty scoffs at Leslie’s “close-mindedness” and, again, blames her church.
Lou states that she is an atheist. Kitty declares that her marijuana gummies are a near-religious experience.
In the midst of people talking about who is or isn’t going to hell, Alice chucklingly declares that she is definitely headed to hell. She even jokingly growls out “Hail Satan” in a phone message to Leslie. And Leslie then flies down to Key West, where Marilyn’s wedding is taking place, for fear that her mother has joined a satanic cult.
Alice openly embraces the stereotypical “rock ‘n roll” lifestyle. She repeatedly flirts with and lures handsome young men away to have sex (off camera). In one case, we hear the activity of Alice and a young guy in a storage closet. Alice’s sexual proclivities are so prominent that Lou calls her a “postmenopausal wolf in heat.”
Other than Lou, the other friends repeatedly make comments about sexual things in their lives as well. Marilyn even gives Lou a Kegel ball to help her relax. The women talk about how to use the ball, much to Lou’s chagrin.
Lou meets two women and a gay man who are in Key West for a bachelorette party. She later runs into this trio and introduces them to her friends. Later still, they all (except Lou) go to a male strip club. Several of the females in the group wear glasses and headpieces shaped like male genitals. Marilyn is called up on stage as a male stripper removes his tear-away clothes and shakes his g-string clad crotch in her face. The women and the camera gaze lustfully at the stripper’s bare backside until Kitty recognizes a birthmark there and realizes that he’s her grandson, Nathan.
Nathan and Kitty talk, and she offers her full love and support for his work and gay lifestyle. Alice declares that if Lou doesn’t loosen up (and find a man), she’ll end up having to have sex with her cats. Several women wear lowcut swimsuits and dresses.
[Spoiler Warning] We find out late in the film that Lou and Marilyn’s rift was caused when Marilyn used her abundant sexual charms to seduce Lou’s boyfriend and have sex with him. Then, he and Marilyn eloped, breaking Lou’s heart. “I couldn’t make a bed,” Marilyn snorts. “But I could break one.”
Alice, Marilyn and Kitty are parasailing when the rope anchoring them to the boat comes loose. They drift to a nearby beach and crash heavily onto sunbathers there. Lou and Marilyn get into a screaming argument, pushing each other and ripping each other’s clothes.
Lou accidentally steps in front of a cyclist, causing him to crash into a phone pole. Then someone steals the injured man’s bike. Lou uses the rubber Kegel ball Marilyn gave her as a slingshot to knock the thief off the bike.
Three f-words top the stack of crudities here, including some four or five uses of the word “h—” and a couple uses each of “a–” and “b–ch.”
God’s name is misused 18 times.
Booze and drugs are both consumed in abundance in this film. In most scenes someone is drinking wine, beer or hard alcohol. And in many instances, they’re consuming or puffing some form of cannabis at the same time.
Alice is the main drug and alcohol abuser, of course. She’s constantly eating edibles, popping some pill or puffing on a vape pen. She even declares that she’s carrying illegal drugs in an intimate female organ while traveling on an airplane. But the other women consume nearly as much as she does when it comes to alcohol. After fighting with Lou, for instance, Marilyn begins swigging bottles of booze and gobbling spiked gummies to the point of vomiting it all back up.
Even the rather conservative Lou gets blitzed a couple times. She unknowingly consumes marijuana edibles as a form of seasickness prevention and gets very high. Then, in a tense moment, she drinks four mixed drinks one after another.
In addition, boozy jokes abound, all designed to celebrate the over-the-top guzzling.
Alice and Kitty have to tell Lou a big lie to get her to even consider traveling to Key West.
It feels like we’ve seen quite a few movies of late—think 80 for Brady and Summer Camp—that showcase seasoned actresses playing old friends who get together and party like it’s 1999.
The Fabulous Four is yet another one of those cinematic endeavors.
In this flick’s case, Susan Sarandon is definitely a standout in the crew. She balances her quirky-but-enjoyable character with underplayed humor to great effect. On that humor front, there are some jokes in the movie’s mix that will raise at least a few chuckles. And the film’s encouragements to forgive those who have wronged us and start each day with a renewed and fulfilling zeal are both praiseworthy sentiments.
In fact, this could have been a cute pic if not for the fact that 80% of its humor is based on winking sexual japes, Christian-bashing jabs and people getting regularly blitzed from booze and various cannabis-based products. For that matter, this uneven film even suggests at times that all that boozy, sexual folderol is the definition of a fulfilling life.
That’s not so funny. It’s actually rather sad.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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