The First Wives Club
With Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Maggie Smith, and Sarah Jessica Parker
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On one level, The First Wives Club is a snappy satire, well written by Robert Harling (also the author of Steel Magnolias–another vehicle for women). When Elise moans in ecstasy, “Do it to me. Do it to me now!” she’s talking to her plastic surgeon, asking him to “fill up” her lips with collagen. When Annie voices concerns about her sense of self, her mother chastises her: “You’re still married. You have a daughter. You’re very happy. You don’t need self-esteem.” When Annie tries to say something positive about herself, all she can come up with is “I’m seeing a wonderful therapist.” Shelly (Sarah Jessica Parker), the gauche mistress of Brenda’s husband, betrays her lack of class by exclaiming about the food to her society-matron hostess, “This is restaurant quality!” Brenda calls Shelly “Princess Pelvis,” and Elise’s husband calls Elise “a sack of silicone, a piece of plastic.” That may not be Poe, but it is alliteration, and Hollywood screenplays aren’t generally known for their poetic devices.
Certain films of dubious artistic merit are nonetheless worth watching and preserving for what they tell us about ourselves and our culture. Two hundred years from now The First Wives Club will be an anthropological artifact for historians studying the 1990s, revealing the degree of self-consciousness that comes with living in a media culture. Cary Grant makes us feel that the pervasive playfulness in his performances–it’s often impossible to determine whether or not he’s being serious–emerges from the character he’s playing. In today’s comedies we see the actor, not the role.
In this archetypal film of the 90s, its preoccupations with the actors’ world, the act of performance, and self-consciousness are summed up perfectly in the women’s climactic dance through the streets of New York. They’re not just having fun, grooving, goofing around, improvising, discovering steps, or expressing themselves. Their spontaneity has been perfected–it’s flawless, a plastic ideal. Edited to conform to our notions of how perfect we can look being ourselves, the scene isn’t human. In real life we don’t get a swelling orchestra and applause.
