Book Club
Paramount Pictures | Release Date: May 18, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
11
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattMay 18, 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. Read full review
75
ObserverRex ReedMay 18, 2018
It’s such a pleasure to see four mature women, more beautiful, glamorous, desirable and pulled together than most of the ladies today who are half their age, share the screen in all their glory that it’s easy to forget how disappointing the movie is. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMay 18, 2018
Although there are times when the dialogue is downright insipid, it contains enough wit to provoke frequent chuckles (and maybe even a few guffaws – Andy Garcia has a laugh-out-loud one-liner) and the movie quadrupoles down on the romance element. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshMay 17, 2018
This movie is either in your wheelhouse or it's not, but for those looking forward to Book Club, it delivers. For what it is — a breezy bit of Nancy Meyers-like fantasy, featuring four beloved actresses talking about sex, baby — it's exceedingly enjoyable. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSusan WloszczynaMay 17, 2018
This fairly laugh-packed comedy aims to address the desire for intimate companionship in older adults, an increasingly topical issue as more Americans live into their nineties. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayMay 17, 2018
It has brio, rueful humor and celebratory verve that is nearly impossible to resist. Read full review
70
SlateJeffrey BloomerMay 24, 2018
Book Club may in the end be little more than an excuse for a senior sex comedy, and a somewhat sleepy one at that, but at least it understands the weird energy of enjoying something you know you shouldn’t. Read full review
70
VoxEmily VanDerWerffMay 19, 2018
When the central four women are played by Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen — and the rest of the cast is stuffed with ringers — well, it doesn’t matter if the camerawork isn’t especially vibrant. Read full review
70
Village VoiceApril WolfeMay 19, 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. Read full review
70
Paste MagazineOktay Ege Kozak May 17, 2018
The natural chemistry between the four leads is what gives this material the energy it needs. They all bring their A-game here. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMay 17, 2018
A chance to see four terrific actresses — let’s not use the gender-neutral term in this context — having varying degrees of fun with matters of sisterhood, sex and hope in a movie that touches on mortality and holds out the prospect of later-life joy. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaMay 17, 2018
As it turns out, Book Club is only tangentially “about” the Fifty Shades trilogy, and that’s what makes it so smart. Read full review
70
TheWrapInkoo KangMay 16, 2018
The cast is just as game for the broad humor as it is for the emotional beats; the latter’s familiarity doesn’t detract from its poignancy. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshMay 16, 2018
This movie is either in your wheelhouse or it's not, but for those looking forward to Book Club, it delivers. For what it is — a breezy bit of Nancy Meyers-like fantasy, featuring four beloved actresses talking about sex, baby — it's exceedingly enjoyable. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonMay 16, 2018
Bergen is consistently the best part of Book Club: natural, dryly funny, and, in a non-pitying way, quietly heartbreaking. Read full review
65
The AtlanticDavid SimsMay 21, 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. Read full review
63
Movie NationRoger MooreMay 16, 2018
Book Club, aka Sisterhood of the Traveling Spanx, stuffs the screen with Oscar and Emmy winning actresses of a certain age and hopes the laughs will follow. And they do, just often enough to make this genial, eye-roller of a farce work. Read full review
63
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldMay 16, 2018
Book Club is very silly and feather-light, but let me say this: Spending time with this quartet is way more fun than reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Read full review
63
The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckMay 16, 2018
Book Club has a script that’s often so heavy on the corn — make that corn syrup — that it strains credulity and leaves you groaning. But then, darn it, suddenly it makes you tearful, with an unexpectedly genuine moment, or laugh out loud. It’s a credit to the cast, and the cast only. Read full review
60
Time OutAbbey BenderMay 17, 2018
It all adds up to a pleasant diversion, but you might wish this cinematic bonbon offered something closer to a meal. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottMay 16, 2018
These women — Ms. Fonda, Ms. Keaton, Ms. Steenburgen and Ms. Bergen, that is — have nothing to prove. Each one brings enough credibility and charisma to Book Club to render its weaknesses largely irrelevant. Read full review
58
The Film StageJared MobarakMay 16, 2018
Book Club...excels not in its boldness to be risqué, but its boldness to portray vulnerability. It’s about love’s risk versus reward and the acknowledgement that present happiness is worth the future’s potential pain. Read full review
58
IndieWireKate ErblandMay 16, 2018
It’s light entertainment meant to be shared, a big glass of summer fun that goes down easy. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMay 17, 2018
What a waste of some perfectly wonderful legends. Read full review
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonMay 17, 2018
There are also Photoshopped aggregations of Bergen, Fonda, Keaton and Steenburgen, and though they were never actually grouped together when young, they register reasonably well here as lifelong friends. The movie rides entirely on their charm, not so much on the strength of the writing or the jokes. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMay 16, 2018
There is a built-in pleasure in seeing Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda and Mary Steenburgen in the same movie. We’re used to them. We like them. We like being around them — but not so much that we can’t notice that Book Club is a pretty strained affair, not especially funny and weirdly off key. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMatthew MonagleMay 16, 2018
Book Club isn’t a movie for me. It’s probably not a movie for you, either. Book Club was written for an audience that will find loaded references to "50 Shades of Grey" delightfully risqué. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineKeith WatsonMay 16, 2018
It’s been said that casting is 90% of directing, and it seems to be 90% of the writing in Bill Holderman's film. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenMay 16, 2018
The movie is a testament to the star power of Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen, who, as the longtime friends at the center of a run-of-the-mill comedy, are the only reasons to see it. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeMay 14, 2018
The script is so lazy and outdated in its humor, it condescends to the same audience it purports to empower. Read full review
38
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMay 17, 2018
A disgrace and a waste of the talents of Oscar winners Keaton, Fonda and Steenburgen and Emmy recipient Bergen. Obviously, the film is intended for an older audience. But is this anemic, feature-length sitcom really the best that Hollywood can do? Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversMay 17, 2018
Some may feel like this smirking sex farce goes down easy. Others may choke on it – or worse, feel like they've wandered into the cinematic equivalent of Christian Grey's Red Room of Pain? Read full review
33
ConsequenceCaroline SiedeMay 17, 2018
A smarter film would’ve more deeply explored the interpersonal dynamics between these four very different lifelong friends, but Book Club presents its central quartet as a blandly supportive girl group and mines drama from their far less interesting individual romantic storylines instead. Read full review
30
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMay 17, 2018
These supremely talented women are put through embarrassing paces by director and co-writer Bill Holderman. It’s meant to be a film about a reawakening of desire, and thus life. It turns out to be a wince-inducing mess. Read full review
30
VarietyDennis HarveyMay 16, 2018
Really, it’s sad that the best Hollywood can come up with for so much seasoned talent is this stale shake-and-bake combining upscale-lifestyle porn with some tepid smirky humor. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorMay 17, 2018
The whole thing feels like a late-night, dorm-room gab fest, except that the four women in question are well over 60, which is the gag. Read full review
25
Boston GlobeTy BurrMay 16, 2018
This feeble excuse for a comedy made me angry, and if you have any cherished cinematic feelings for the quartet of actresses at its center, you may feel angry, too. Read full review
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