Poms

Poms

Starring Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Rhea Perlman, Pam Grier

Directed by Zara Hayes

The Story:
Martha (Diane Keaton) lives in the big city, but after she found out she has cancer, she sells mostly everything she has and decides to live the rest of her life in a retirement home in Georgia.  Upon arriving she finds that the citizens are all happy, friendly, and upbeat - things she doesn't want to be.  She also learns from the head of the home Vicki (Celia Weston) that she has to join a club at the resort, much to her disdain.  Things get worse when she meets upbeat, loud, cheery neighbor Sheryl (Jacki Weaver), and she really begins to doubt her move - until Sheryl finds Martha's old cheerleading uniform, and Martha decides she wants to start a cheerleading club.  They find six other women who want to join, and set out to do what they think would be impossible, and proves to everyone that you're never too old to follow your dreams.

The Synopsis:
Remember when Diane Keaton was an Oscar-winning actress who acted in acclaimed films like "The Godfather" and "Annie Hall?"  Or when Jacki Weaver earned a much-deserved Oscar nomination for her gritty, steely performance in "Animal Kingdom?"  How about Pam Grier starring in Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown?"  Those were the career-defining roles these powerful women in Hollywood are best known for - and now they've resorted to starring in a should've-been-direct-to-video snoozefest paint-by-numbers comedy where they amble around and wave pom poms.  You can even see Diane Keaton's defeated look during the whole movie as she's probably thinking "Michelle Pfeiffer gets to star in the 'Maleficent' sequel and gets to be in the MCU and here I am doing this?" and you feel even worse for these women as they seem confined to the golden years of their lives starring in this should've been declared DOA film.

I'm all for cheering for the underdog and achieving your dreams no matter your age, and this is the only positive thing "Poms" delivers - it is uplifting, it's fun and funny in moments, and their final show-stopping number is very well-done, but that's the only positive here, and this concept is something you can find in a dozen other more-well-done films.  This looks like a made-for-TV movie, where we're told the entire story from the start and doesn't deviate from the norms, as you can set your watch to what's going to happen - the typical audition montage, the practice montage, the obvious setback/obstacle, the negative backlash, the resounding rise, and the eventual triumph.  Check them all off your list because that's what "Poms" is, and that's absolutely no spoiler, because the film couldn't have gone any other way.

Diane Keaton stars as a woman who's settled for dying, who's stopped her cancer treatments and has retired to a retirement home to die (in one of the few funny moments of the film, she literally tells the welcoming committee that she's there to just "die").  Maybe Keaton was referring to the death of her career, which unfortunately seems to be happening after this and last year's "Book Club," but maybe she'll get some really good work in the future - maybe as Thor's grandmother?

Martha wanted to be a cheerleader all her life and finally gets her shot, but she's shot down by the community's leader Vicki (who basically exists to be the geriatric version of the classic uptight principal in every high school movie of this ilk where she sets out to destroy the cheerleading squad because...reasons?), but manages to get a gang together and fulfill their dreams.  It's cute and cuddly, but so is a baby bear before it grows up to a big bear that'll literally squeeze the life out of you - and in this case, this is what happened to my interest in the film, it just kept dying little by little as it squeezed any desire for seeing this film out of me.

The Summary:
Being a senior citizen should be the time where you look back on your life with fondness and appreciate what lies ahead, but it seems that the acclaimed actresses in "Poms" have looked back at their stellar careers and see this and wonder, "is this the best that's left?"

The Score: D+