THE HOT FLASH CLUB

Four friends, getting older: Popular novelist Thayer (Custody, 2001, etc.) attempts a postmenopausal chick-lit romp, with mixed results.

Meet Faye, Shirley, Marilyn, and Alice! Watch them face the dreary reality of aging and life’s many disappointments! Faye, a popular painter of contemporary Impressionist scenes, still grieves for her beloved Jack, but she must help her distraught daughter cope with her colicky newborn and unfaithful husband. Shirley, a fabulously fit massage therapist who mothers her lonely female clients, lives with a younger lover who doesn’t know that she’s 60 (yeah, right). She gets a lot of satisfaction from nurturing others—but who’s going to nurture her? Her guy just walked out the door. Marilyn is a brilliant but dowdy scientist who’s worried that her son’s beautiful fiancée only wants his money. Turns out that the beauty pines to be ordinary, so that people will appreciate her for who she really is (yeah, right). A much more unpleasant surprise awaits Marilyn, whose equally unattractive husband ditches her for a much younger woman. And Alice, an African-American achiever, secretly suffers from arthritis. Was her long, hard climb up the corporate ladder worth it? A younger version of herself, annoyingly named Alison, is able, ready, and willing to force Alice into early retirement. Not surprisingly, a change is gonna come, courtesy of the Hot Flash Club. Eventually, Shirley pursues her dream of opening a day spa. Alice finds true love at last. Faye’s errant son-in-law Lars gets his comeuppance when Alice’s son Alan falls for Lars’s lover, Jennifer. Marilyn discovers sex with a brawny boyfriend. Gray hairs and sagging flesh are affirmed as proud badges of womanhood, so there.

Predictable and unfunny.