'The Fab Four' Review: Frenemies Arrive in a Tropical Place

In “The Fab Four,” a quartet of female friends in their golden years, played by a powerhouse ensemble of beloved and lauded actors, go on a vacation where their long-standing relationships and ingrained patterns will be challenged, resulting in cathartic personal growth. Wait, didn’t I review this movie two months ago? A year ago? Twice?

It was while reviewing “Summer Camp” in May that I questioned the proliferation of these well-known movies (four older actresses, one vacation). The concept is meant to be lucrative, but the formula is not only familiar, it’s cloned. How can they keep getting away with it?

“The Fab Four” is surprising only because Diane Keaton doesn’t appear in it. Susan Sarandon takes over Keaton’s role as Lou, an uptight, career-driven surgeon with a penchant for pantsuits. Her old friends — crazy, lusty singer Alice (Megan Mullally) and cannabis grower Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph) — convince her to go see Lou. They want to mend a decades-old rift between Lou and Marilyn (Bette Midler), who used to be best friends until Marilyn cheated on Lou’s boyfriend John and married him. Naturally, things haven’t been the same since — and for good reason, one could argue.

Marilyn is now a widow and has moved to Key West, where she intends to marry her new suitor. With promises of Hemingway's six-toed cats, Alice and Kitty lure Lou to the Florida island and suddenly tell him the trip is to celebrate Marilyn's wedding. Misunderstandings, mishaps, and male strippers ensue.

There are also mushroom trips, parasailing fiascos, and plenty of TikTok interludes cluttering up what could have been a fairly pathetic story about interpersonal betrayal. Sarandon beautifully sells Lou’s grief with palpable pain (this is an Oscar-winning actor, after all), but every time the film focuses on this central conflict, it swerves into something silly, like Lou using a personal pleasure device like a slingshot in the street, or a series of deeply irritating social media-style interstices.

There’s also this group of drunk young men who hang out with the women on the plane ride. They’re there to be the wild, drunken foil to the strict Lou (a woman so uptight she never takes off her elaborate crossbody bag, not even for the final choreographed dance number), but they also prove to be the only functioning moral compass in the entire movie. They blanch in horror at the story of Marilyn stealing Lou’s boyfriend, as they should, but as none of Lou’s friends do. “The Fab Four” never makes a case for why Lou and Marilyn should repair their friendship, only that they used to be friends. Sometimes friendships are left in the past for a reason.

Ralph proves a steady, supportive presence, despite a disconcerting subplot about his devout Christian daughter and gay grandson. Mullally's Alice is just there to be a fun, drug-addled girl, gobbling up jelly beans and shoving all the attractive waiters into a closet for an affair. Midler is willing to do whatever her quirky (and somewhat obnoxious) character does. Bruce Greenwood and Timothy V. Murphy show up for the job as age-appropriate pretty boys.

Director Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker) has a long resume, but she films this movie in the same style that all her others have been filmed in: flat, bright, and colorful. Savannah, Georgia, stands in for Key West, and the island itself is only filmed on b-roll, so the film doesn't convey the essence of the place.

There is a version of this film, about this conflict, with the twists and turns along the way, that could be quite compelling, and Sarandon's performance shows us what that could be. That's why it's so frustrating when it constantly deviates from anything real. This fearsome quartet may be appealing, but the film goes beyond the conventional and is far from fabulous.

Walsh is a film critic for the Tribune News Service.