“The First Wives Club”: A Comedy Classic Turns 25
25 years ago last week, an all-star comedy centered on three middle-aged women was released and became a surprise blockbuster. The impact of the film is still being felt today and a contemporary re-evaluation led me to realize that it was even better than I remembered.
The Background
Twenty-five years ago last week, a comedy classic was released in theaters. The First Wives Club told the story of three women in their forties — Elise (Goldie Hawn), an alcoholic movie star whose career was declining rapidly; Annie (Diane Keaton), an insecure and passive housewife; and Brenda (Bette Midler), a plucky Jewish mother. Their common bond is that they were best friends at Middlebury College in the late 1960s. After decades of estrangement, they are reunited under the grimmest of circumstances — the suicide of Cynthia (Stockard Channing), the fourth member of their undergraduate quartet. The reunited women discover that despite their disparate life journeys and markedly different personalities they have something very important in common — they have all been brutally discarded by their husbands for younger women. They team up to exact revenge but find much, much more.
Similarly to the characters they play in The First Wives Club, stars Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler all had quite a bit in common when they…
