A closer look at “The Fabulous Four”: A missed opportunity

The Fabulous Four is a film that, despite its promising premise and star-studded cast, struggles to find its footing. The movie’s unfortunate resemblance to the delightful 80 For Brady—a 2023 comedy about four aging women reclaiming their youth and friendship during a Super Bowl adventure—casts a long shadow over it. While both films were written independently, the comparison is inevitable, and The Fabulous Four falls short in both humor and drama.

A wedding in the Florida Keys

Instead of a football final in Houston, the destination in The Fabulous Four is a wedding in the picturesque Florida Keys. The plot revolves around four older women, played by Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Megan Mullally, who reunite despite a past fallout. The details of their estrangement are revealed slowly over the course of the film’s 98 minutes. Along the way, they encounter a few handsome gentlemen, adding a touch of romance to the mix.

Despite the impressive cast, the film never quite shakes the feeling that its talented actors are being underutilized. Sarandon, Midler, Ralph, and Mullally manage to elevate the material to a level of borderline tolerable, but the movie often feels hard to watch—sometimes literally, as it frequently fails to capture basic reaction shots from its seasoned stars.

Reuniting old friends

The story begins with Lou (Sarandon), a New York surgeon, and Marilyn (Midler), a burgeoning TikTok personality, who haven’t spoken in years. Marilyn’s impending second wedding prompts their old neighbors—promiscuous recording artist Alice (Mullally) and cannabis-cultivating grandma Kitty (Ralph)—to concoct a plan to reunite them. This basic premise, along with the characters’ broad outlines, holds a lot of comedic and dramatic promise. Lou is fighting a ticking clock, fearing that her age might force her into retirement, adding a layer of urgency to the plot.

Unfortunately, these introductory flourishes are about as clear as the movie ever gets. From that point on, the directing and screenplay work in tandem to confound. Humor is subjective, but The Fabulous Four lacks fundamental comedic clarity, making it difficult for viewers to locate its punchlines.

Missed comedic opportunities

Some characters get accidentally high, but this is usually the joke in and of itself, rather than anything they say or do. The smell of spilled alcohol leads one character to assume another has urinated on herself—a gag that wouldn’t work even with the assistance of Smell-O-Vision. At one point, the leading foursome are told to “keep it down” when none of them are speaking loudly or saying anything embarrassing, while they’re all in a noisy space with no eavesdroppers nearby. This is one of many head-scratching lines that falls apart no matter which way you slice it.

Each exchange in the film feels generated at random, with little care for who’s speaking or what scenario has led to a given exchange. It’s baffling to watch, though this makes it challenging to reverse-engineer, resulting in a fun little guessing game as to what the original line or premise might have been in a previous draft.

Characters with potential, but lacking depth

Sarandon makes a meal out of scraps, imbuing Lou’s story with genuine hurt and betrayal. Midler eventually reaches this stage as well, though she’s forced to spend much of her screen time stretching incredulity. The film features numerous cases of mistaken identity, which only work if every character is a complete idiot to a frustrating degree. There’s silly in an adorable-old-lady kind of way, but in The Fabulous Four, the silliness reveals half-baked writing that renders each of its lead characters a walking contradiction, defined by a single trait that isn’t explored or mined for its potential humor, let alone its potential to establish interpersonal dynamics.

Lou has a compulsion to clean, but this only manifests as dabbing the occasional tabletop with alcohol wipes—a fairly common sight in a post-COVID world. Marilyn is addicted to TikTok, but this has no function other than characters referring to the social media platform as though this were a joke in and of itself. Kitty has family issues that don’t intersect with the main plot. And Alice, well, she sleeps around with younger men, but no complications come of this.

A lack of comedic causality

There’s no sense of comedic causality in The Fabulous Four, even though it’s theoretically about how its characters’ actions impact one another. Its random happenings eventually culminate in a celebratory musical number that, while intended as a victory lap, yields secondhand embarrassment given how totally checked out the cast seems to be by this point. It’s as though they were meta-textually aware that their tremendous abilities were being wasted on a movie that, while well-meaning, is anything but fabulous.

For those interested in seeing the trailer, you can find it here.

Personal reflections for cinema enthusiasts:

As a lover of cinema, it’s always disheartening to see a film with such potential fall short. The cast of The Fabulous Four is undeniably talented, and the premise holds promise. However, the execution leaves much to be desired. It’s a reminder that even the best actors can’t save a poorly written script. For those who enjoy films about friendship and second chances, there are better options out there. But if you’re curious to see how this one plays out, it might be worth a watch—just don’t set your expectations too high.