The ladies of Book Club: The Next Chapter do, at least, hold a few books at the start of their film. But that’s really the only nod to format. Quite unlike the first film—which was centered on later-in-life sexual (and sorta social) awakenings stirred by a specific tome, 50 Shades of Grey—this sequel doesn’t bother with finding another titillating novel to set its heroes on a new course. Instead, they just decide to go to Italy, mostly as a bachelorette party.

Never-married bon vivant Vivian (Jane Fonda) is set to get hitched to the beau she fell for in the first film, Arthur (Don Johnson). She reveals her happy news to her best pals—retired judge Sharon (Candice Bergen), recently out of work chef Carol (Mary Steenburgen), and merry-ish widow Diane (Diane Keaton)—after months, if not over a year, of quarantine separation. Yes, I’m sorry to report that the new Book Club movie drags us back into the socially distanced, Zoom-box hell of yesteryear. But only in an opening montage, in which life changes are laid out and books are held up to the camera to remind us why the movie is called what it is.

Then it’s off to Italy, a trip that leads each of the girls to some sort of epiphany. Carol has become overly protective of her husband, Bruce (Craig T. Nelson), since he had a mild heart attack. She must learn to embrace the time they have together rather than drastically limiting their lives for fear of death. Vivian is contending with nuptial doubts; she keeps seeing signs that she’s made the wrong choice, that she’s giving up who she is in favor of something so pedestrian and limiting as marriage. Sharon is, eh, I dunno, just making funny jokes and exploring her newfound promiscuity, while Diane is figuring out what to do with her dead husband’s ashes—and what to do with her still living boyfriend, Mitchell (Andy Garcia). 

Those plot points are secondary to the main sell of the film, of course, which is to see this quartet of grande dames make ribald jokes (yuks about a man’s “meatballs” and someone’s “bouche” being “amused,” etc.) in postcard-perfect Italian locations. The movie delivers on that premise, though the jokes are more strained, less organically sourced than they were in the first film, in which 50 Shades provided a sturdy thematic springboard. Bergen succeeds best at enlivening the new film’s limp (ha, limp! Like a penis!) material, so trained is her sitcom timing.

The others are all perfectly fine, though Keaton remains lost in an abstraction of her famous kooky persona, while Fonda seems stuck on repeat so soon after her similarly hot-tamale turn in 80 for Brady. Everyone is on repeat, really, simply trying to squeeze some extra juice out of a wacky idea that worked well once before. (The original Book Club earned nearly eight times its budget at the box office.) Which, to be fair, makes them no different from many of their younger colleagues stuck on the franchise hamster wheels of the IP era.

What’s really missing in this followup film is a compelling emotional current, one to match the bittersweet poignance of the first film (and, it must be said, that of 80 for Brady). There is plenty of sentiment in the film’s goopy conclusion, but it’s tacked-on, perfunctory. Compare this film to the woozy, lyrical sequel The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and it seems pamphlet thin.

Given that the older-ladies lark has grown into a financially viable genre, I’m wondering where all the truly good scripts are. Where is the wit and sparkle of, say, a First Wives Club, or even a Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again? Book Club’s four stars—and others like them—deserve material that’s specific, clever, surprising in some way. These plug-and-play movies have lost much of their charm at this point, feeling more like a slightly degrading duty than any kind of demographic triumph. Which may be overthinking it. But shouldn’t a movie about a book club feel at least a little bit literate?