The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club

Review By: Aaron Cutler
AaronCutler@TheCinemaSource.com

F. Scott Fitzgerald once claimed that American lives had no second acts; the characters in The Boynton Beach Bereavement Club, the new geriatric sex comedy situated in that lovely old folks’ area near Boca Raton, try to prove him wrong.

They are a mixed batch of people who have all sought out the Bereavement Club for the same reason: To mourn the death of a loved one. Jack (Len Cariou) is dealing with both the death of his wife and the advances of the comely Sandy (Sally Kellerman). Marilyn (Brenda Vaccaro) is learning to cope with the rage and anger that comes after her husband is run down by an obnoxious old lady on a cell phone. Jack’s friend Harry (Joseph Bologna) lies about himself on Internet dating sites and gets more bang for his buck than he could have thought possible. Marilyn’s friend Lois (Dyan Cannon) has found a charming new beau (Michael Nouri) who likes roller skating and beachside picnicking – but is he really a real estate developer?

For those who fear that Boynton Beach might be either sitcom or gross-out, I am pleased to report that the film is neither and that, despite the occasional easy caricature (the early-bird Chinese special, the disaffected Goth granddaughter, the biddies doing water aerobics on an early weekend morning), it consistently stays rooted in its characters. They are likeable people, some of whom are looking for love, all of whom are lonely, and much of their genuineness doubtless came from the real-life stories that the director, Susan Seidelman, heard at an actual society not unlike the one in the film.

By far the hardest nut to crack is Jack, who clings to his beloved’s memory, but over the course of the film he will go from a lonely single guy with the tuna casseroles piling up to a man perfectly willing to ruin veal scaloppini for two. Cariou, better-known for his work on Broadway than in film (he originated the role of Sweeney Todd), gives a marvelous performance as a practical man unwilling to be nudged out of old habits, almost an older Jewish version of William Hurt’s character in The Accidental Tourist.

The rest of the cast also rises to the occasion, and one of the easy pleasures of Beach is the way in which it provides strong opportunities for quality performers long since thought AWOL. As the shiksa goddess who grabs hold of Jack each time he tries to run away, Kellerman (a veteran of such boys’ club comedies as M*A*S*H and Back to School) creates a gentle, understanding foil off of which he