To most guys, the two most dreaded words in the English language are "chick flick." Most guys will tell you that chick flicks have no gratuitous nudity, no car chases, and no shootouts. They are movies about such touchy-icky subjects as feelings, emotions, and (eeek!) relationships. For most guys, taking their girlfriend or wife or significant other to a movie like Steel Magnolias, or Fried Green Tomatoes, or the new Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is payback for earlier movie dates spent with Mr. DeNiro, Mr. Stallone, or Mr. Schwarzenegger.
Fortunately, I am not "most guys." As long a movie is done well, I will enjoy it whether it is about cops and robbers, Jedi and Sith, or those greatest of big-screen rivals ... mothers and daughters. I am happy to say that Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is a well-done adaptation of two of Rebecca Wells best-selling novels: the eponymous Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Little Altars Everywhere. It's not great. I do have some quibbles, chiefly that this movie version comes damn close to drowning in its own preciousness. But the cast is terrific, and director and co-screenwriter Callie Khouri has given audiences a warm and inviting movie that finds its own emotional honesty.
The movie centers on the character of Siddalee, a successful thirtysomething playwright in New York who has just dished the dirt on her eccentric mother from down South in a Time magazine article. Her enraged mom is Vivi (Ellen Burstyn), the founding member of a decades-old group of four best friends who call themselves the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. They include: Teensy (Fionnula Flanagan), Necie (Shirley Knight), and Caro (Maggie Smith).
Mother and daughter wage a war through the U.S. mail. Vivi, hurt that Sidda told the Time reporter that all of her plays are the result of a difficult childhood, sends her daughter old pictures with Sidda's head cut out of them. Sidda responds by sending Vivi an invitation to her wedding to cute Connor (Angus MacFayden of Braveheart, who turns in a wonderfully comic performance as the put-upon fiancie) with the date, time, and place cut out of them.
Knowing that this fight is more than about the article, the three unrelated Ya-Ya Sisters travel to the Big Apple and basically kidnap Sidda and take her back to Georgia. They make the young bride-to-be a deal. She can go back to Manhattan but only after she listens to their stories of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Through old pictures and stories, Sidda takes a walk down her own distorted memory lane to finally understand why Vivi is the way she is.
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood has loads of charm provided by a nearly pitch-perfect cast of veteran performers. The film is at its best in the present day as Flanagan, Knight, and Smith (who has just the best comic timing on the planet right now) quarrel, quibble, and crack wise over almost-constant food and drink. Smith's Caro is the funniest, toting an oxygen tank wherever she goes and calling people "pal." Bullock, meanwhile, brings the right balance of deference and defiance to her scenes with the Ya-Ya Sisters. Sidda really does love these old broads, but not to the point where she is going to lower her defense mechanisms.
However, the film is at its clumsiest in juggling the numerous flashbacks through several different time periods. When the girls are pre-teens and planning to attend the Gone With the Wind premiere in 1939, the film's overall charm and sense of longing is maintained along with the subtle hints of pain and emotional trauma that will later impact Vivi and Sidda. But when the film flashes forward to the 1940s and '50s, it becomes the Ashley Judd Show.
Judd plays Vivi in her 20s and 30s in a truly great performance, probably her best job of acting since her big-screen debut in Ruby in Paradise nine years ago. Unfortunately, the three women who play Teency, Necie, and Caro during this time period are NEVER defined. Most shocking of all, we're not even sure which one is which! The trio is there just to reflect Vivi's emotions. When Vivi smiles and laughs, they smile and laugh. When she is sad and cries, they're sad and they cry.
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is really the story of Vivi and Sidda, not the four sisters. I wanted more of the sisters. Don't get me wrong. The mother-daughter dynamic is compelling. Sidda is so wrapped up in her own pain and insecurities that she has failed to acknowledge that her mother's domineering ways are the result of her own trauma-tinged childhood that bled into an adulthood where she slowly degenerated into a closet booze-hound (in a time when alcoholism and addiction were rarely treated properly). Still, I couldn't help feeling that the movie had a few too many flashbacks and that several of the flashbacks that it did have were oddly sketchy and somewhat confusing. Sidda also has a brother and a sister who grew up with her, but they are barely mentioned in the film's present-day sequences even though they are probably just as screwed up as Sidda.
(Another quibble: Vivi and her friends age from about 11 to 18 between the late 1939 premiere of Gone With the Wind and the early World War II days when Vivi meets the man of her dreams ... but then again, Ashley Wilkes knocked up Melanie during his visit home for Christmas in 1862, and she didn't give birth to their little sucker until Sherman was marching on Atlanta a couple of years later. Not only that, but what about when Scarlett ... I know, I know. Damn me for my logic.)
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is ultimately worth a trip to the theater. While I wish the movie could have been tighter, there is NO denying that it is entertaining. I really liked the fact that it didn't try and wring tears out of me as many lesser "chick flicks" have fiendishly attempted in recent years. I'm sure more than a few real-life Ya-Yas out there will be reaching for tissues by the end of it, but it's not as ruthless or as manipulative as an I Am Sam or a Beaches.
I can hear some of you now: Ted, I am a manly man. Is there any reason I should see this movie? My answer to that is this. If you a manly man who currently does NOT have a woman, then you should most certainly see this movie, and I mean immediately. Why? Think of the ratio, my friends! I'm taking at least 50 to 1 first weekend. Why do you think I went to freakin' Duran Duran concerts in the '80s. For the music?! Hell, no! I could care less that the Reflex was a lonely child. I did care that there were 14,000 screaming teenage chicks in the audience. Of course, they were all screaming for Simon LeBon, but still...
I digress. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the guys. Poor hapless species that we are. Men, no place this weekend will have more available women than theaters showing Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. And women of all age ranges, too! The movie appeals to females age 14 to 84. In fact, guys, go all out. Buy yourself a copy of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and bring it to the theater with you. Don't go with a buddy. Sit by yourself. And if you are not the sort that can turn on the tears, take one of those little salt packets that you get at the snack bar or at Burger King and rub a couple of grains in the corners of your eyes. You'll be bawling like a little third-grader with a skinned knee when Sidda and her mom finally have "the talk." Women will love this. This will work! I know it will!
(By the way, ladies, if you see such a man at one of the Ya-Ya screenings this weekend ... RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!)
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood is rated PG-13
for language, mild sensuality, and thematic elements.
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