The Fabulous Four: Definitely Not Fabulous, But Uplifting and Fun

By Kim Hughes

Rating: C+

Even with its slender premise, sporadic laughs, and abundant clichés, The Fabulous Four is entertaining and unapologetically — almost aggressively — sweet-natured, promoting friendship and female camaraderie while spotlighting a demographic underrepresented on screen and widely considered to have the kinds of dilemmas presented here all figured out by now.

That they don’t is the film’s strongest through-line.

The “fabulous” four in question are longtime friends Marilyn (Bette Midler), Lou (Susan Sarandon), Alice (Megan Mullally) and Kitty (Sheryl Lee Ralph), now all in midlife-plus though still vital and working.

When the film opens, Marilyn is newly widowed after a long and happy marriage and is relocating to Key West where she quicky ingratiates herself with the colourful locals and forms a TikTok habit that buoys her with a younger generation, even as it annoys her contemporaries.

Before long, Marilyn is engaged to be remarried. Grounded Kitty and spacey Alice — perhaps not so paradoxically, a substance purveyor and an enthusiastic user, respectively — are summoned south as bridesmaids.

The pair want straightlaced doctor Lou to join them but must construct a ruse involving a coveted six-toed cat to get her to agree to the trip. No shades of Bridesmaids here.

It transpires that when Marilyn met her now-deceased husband John, he was already dating Lou. The betrayal tore the onetime best friends apart even though Marilyn and John were clearly in love and married for 48 years. Marilyn remains in denial about the hurt she caused, and Lou just can’t let it go.

This conflict propels much of the rest of the story, which includes a meet-cute between Lou and a handsome, age-appropriate restaurateur (Bruce Greenwood), multi-character revelations made during a bachelorette party in a strip club, an argument with a sharp Joan Didion reference, a cameo by a weirdly rigid Michael Bolton as Michael Bolton, and lots of moist-eyed talk about fealty and love.

Throw together a bunch of actors of this calibre and there’s immediate watchability. Midler, of course, is a goofball delight throughout, rivalled by Mullally for kooky one-liners and sly side-eye glances.

That Sarandon, Mullally, and Ralph serve as producers suggest The Fabulous Four is a passion project for the women, and one very much guided by women: Australian Jocelyn Moorhouse directs a script by Ann Marie Allison and Jenna Milly.

Lest anyone miss the point that The Fabulous Four is intended as a breezy, lightweight comic romp with a sturdy underlying message, the films ends, literally and quite unexpectedly, with a giant cast-wide song-and-dance number at a wedding gone sideways that briefly includes an actual cat. Honestly, what’s not to like?

The Fabulous Four. Directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse. Starring Bette Midler, Susan Sarandon, Megan Mullally, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Bruce Greenwood. In theatres July 26.