Despite sounding suspiciously like "Almost Famous": The Menopause Years, director Bob Dolman's tale of two middle-aged women rediscovering the people they were and the people they want to be is actually pretty good fun. In a gooey, soft-centred sort of way.
She may be less sex-kitten and more bedraggled alley-cat, but Suzette (Goldie Hawn) is still living the wild-child lifestyle she kicked off in the 70s when she was one half of famed groupie combo The Banger Sisters.
But life is taking its toll. When she loses her LA bar job, she decides to head off to Arizona to find her old partner in rock-star-shaggery, Vinny (Susan Sarandon).
But Vinny prefers to be called Lavinia nowadays. The last thing she wants intruding on her happy life (as the respectable suburban wife of a successful lawyer) is any reminder of her "shagadelic" past. Especially not the sight of the down-at-heel Suzette turning up unannounced at her door.
In between nostalgia riffs and - mercifully only a little - French farce bumbling, the two struggle to remember what they ever saw in each other.
They try to iron the kinks out of Lavinia's messed up family and save a twitchy writer named Harry (the ever-fantastic Geoffrey Rush) from himself.
It's far from perfect: the plot takes an age to creak into motion and it's tricky to shake the feeling that Sarandon and Hawn should have swapped roles early on. Sarandon's depth of ability might have given Suzette some heftier emotional clout. While Hawn's glossy mugging would have perfectly suited the shallower Lavinia.
However, the sheer number of gleeful chortles packed into the film's mid-section more than make up for a host of minor quibbles.
Heck, even an irritatingly triumphal final scene at a high school graduation won't completely wipe the smile from your face.
Silly? Yes. Soppy? Yes. Fun? Oh yes...
The Banger Sisters (2003)
