My prayers were answered. "The First Wives Club" is just like a first wife - full of maturity, cutting humor, insight and hurt.
The campy feature stars Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler as middle-aged women who reunite at the funeral of a college pal, who committed suicide when her ex-hubby remarried a Heather Locklear-type.
The event jars the trio to action because Hawn, Keaton and Midler were also dumped by their spouses for younger, sleeker dames. While the plot centers around their far-fetched although satisfying revenge, several sage lessons about life are handily dispensed along the way:
While eating alone at a ritzy restaurant, Midler draws pitying looks from judgmental couples who think something must be wrong with her if she cannot find a man. Meanwhile, society rarely snubs a guy who chooses to nosh by himself.
A woman's worst enemy is often another woman, especially one who earns and then betrays her trust - such as Keaton's shrink.
Sometimes "loved ones" purposely dispense misinformation to steer their partners away from success, like when Hawn's husband wrongly told her never to appear in a play because it would ruin her movie career.
Everything looks worse, and words and deeds cannot be taken back, when alcohol is in charge.
Since the biggest villainess in the movie was a walking stick and the most moving heroine was the heftiest, it seems the bonier you are, the flakier you act.
A younger woman's goals and ideals are usually somewhat more immediate and self-focused, as Midler's estranged husband found out, because a twentysomething hasn't had the life experiences of a fortysomething with stretch marks and kids.
When people are motivated by helping others (like when the three main characters open a women's crisis center in honor of their dead friend), they inevitably help themselves.
The next time somebody attempts to mold, fold, spindle or mutilate your dreams, remember the stirring words of the movie's golden-oldie theme song, "You Don't Own Me" ("Don't tell me what to say, don't tell me what to do, just let me be myself, that's all I ask of you"), then visualize yourself dancing off into the horizon.
The best revenge is living well, or at least better than your ex - which is pretty tough when a woman still makes only 70 cents to every dollar made by a man.
AS the credits rolled and the crowd headed for the exits, I smiled up at the movie goddess in the sky. She had failed me once before with "Waiting to Exhale," which was about four women who were pathetically desperate for sex and love, whether the men were married, philanderers, bums or bad news.
"The First Wives Club" was also about four women who, initially, were desperate for love, one so much that she took her own life. But this Paramount picture was more than entertainment. It aptly conveyed several retorts to a patriarchy still judging females on their ability to please, their youthful appearance and unfortunate anorectic girth.
Skinny, sminny. Next time, extra butter on the popcorn, honey, and hold the diet drink.