Book Club (2018)

I watched this on a trans-Atlantic flight as a light diversionary film, and it fits that bill, but with some heavy hitting talent on the screen.  Much as how I feel about Grace and Frankie, this film doesn't add up to the sum of its talent, but it is good.
Each of the four lead female characters represents a distinctive romantic stage of older womanhood. Jane Fonda’s Vivian is a never-wed, fabulously successful luxury hotel owner who has a huge appetite for sex but steadfastly shuns commitment.  She is sset back a bit when Don Johnson, playing her old high school sweetheart, reappears on her scene.  Keaton’s character, who is also named Diane, is a recent widow after 40 years of marriage. Her two grown married daughters never consider that maybe she wouldn’t want to spend the rest of her days in the elder-care-ready basement in one of their Arizona homes. She meets a dead-heading pilot, Andy Garcia, and falls a little bit in love with him.  Candace Bergen’s Sharon is an outwardly intimidating federal judge who hasn’t had a relationship of any kind, save with her cat, ever since her divorce 18 years ago. But now that her ex and her son are both engaged, she decides to give online dating sites a try, and she find's her first outing with Wallace Shawn to be much more fun than she anticipated. Mary Steenburgen’s Carol is the only one of the bunch whose marriage is still intact as she lives out her dream as a successful chef with a bustling eatery. But she and hubby Craig Nelson have struggled with intimacy ever since he retired six months ago.So it is a quiet (and largely PG) exploration of end of life intimacy.