Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
58
(21 sources)
58
(21 sources)
-
100
San Francisco Chronicle
It's a glamorous revenge romp, a "9 to 5" mixed with "Auntie Mame," and it gives each star the opportunity to do her best work in a long, long time. Read Full Review » -
88
Rolling Stone
The movie, from the 1992 best seller by Olivia Goldsmith, isn't deathless art. But as pure entertainment, this witty revenge romp is sinfully satisfying. Read Full Review » -
80
Washington Post
And thanks to great existential one-liners from scriptwriter Robert Harling (with appropriate plaudits to novelist Olivia Goldsmith, of course), gender warfare is made amusing for almost everyone. Read Full Review » -
80
Variety
The familiar setup sparkles a little brighter here thanks to the ensemble and their deft delivery of the bitchy dialogue in Robert Harling's adaptation of the Olivia Goldsmith novel. Read Full Review » -
75
Christian Science Monitor
The dialogue is often silly but Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, and Goldie Hawn deliver it with enough crackerjack energy to keep audiences laughing. Read Full Review » -
75
San Francisco Examiner
It's funnier, and bitchier, than Clare Boothe Luce's "The Women," and, best of all, it showcases three wonderful actresses who have rarely been better. Read Full Review » -
70
The New York Times
The film is played as witchy, all-star vamping with a lethal sting. What makes its premise especially funny is that, at heart, it's no laughing matter. Read Full Review » -
70
Chicago Reader
On one level, The First Wives Club is a snappy satire, well written by Robert Harling (also the author of "Steel Magnolias"--another vehicle for women). Read Full Review » -
70
Newsweek
We're here for catty one-liners, movie-star camaraderie and fur-flying vengeance, and, in spite of a regrettable wimpiness that creeps in toward the end, that's what we get. Read Full Review » -
63
TV Guide
Yes, it's great that Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler -- all women of a certain age, though they've done their best to make sure no one's certain what it is -- get to carry a major motion picture, playing college chums reunited by the perfidy of men. Read Full Review » -
60
Los Angeles Times
Yet with so much going for it, the film's creators have made the classic Hollywood choice and treated its actresses like flesh-and-blood special effects. If you've got talent like this, or so the theory goes, a coherent story is a luxury that can be dispensed with. Read Full Review » -
58
Entertainment Weekly
The First Wives Club has all the conviction a comedy of female vengeance needs. But as soon as the dumb plot takes over, the wit leaks out of the movie like helium from a balloon. Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Sun-Times
There is undoubtedly a movie to be made about this material -- a different movie. Read Full Review » -
50
Salon.com
But as badly as the younger women in The First Wives Club are treated, none of the three central characters, with whom we're supposed to identify so strongly, comes off that well either. Read Full Review » -
50
USA Today
The First Wives Club has a femme casting coup for the ages, and sometimes it only takes the right performers interacting to give sprightly fluff indispensable showmanship. [20 Sep 1996 Pg.01.D] Read Full Review » -
40
The New Yorker
The director, Hugh Wilson, aims for harmless froth, and what he winds up with, as the hysteria level rises, is something brash and strident. Read Full Review » -
40
Empire
But what starts out so promisingly with some witty one-liners loses itself in the middle and finally descends into a slapstick routine that cries out for a touch of sophistication. Read Full Review » -
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
It's difficult to say who is more misguided here: the men (director, screenwriter and producer) who made the movie, or the women who signed on to play the parts. Read Full Review » -
38
ReelViews
Unfortunately, although there are a few nasty thorns here and there, The First Wives Club is a largely uninspired (and unfunny) comedy that collapses completely in the final fifteen minutes. Read Full Review » -
30
Washington Post
For all their sass, brass and bewitchery, the starring troika can't breathe life into these characters, much less transform them from women scorned into hellbent furies. Read Full Review » -
30
Austin Chronicle
As a satire this film would be hilarious, but writer Robert Harling's ("Soapdish") script doesn't quite hit the mark. Read Full Review »
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