Queen Bees (2021)

Fluffy, yes. Silly, uh-huh. Qualifies for a Lifetime movie, okay. But we still enjoyed this tale of a smart, prickly, elderly woman who has to stay in a senior independent living facility while her house is under repair. I looked up the ages of all the stars so you don't have to. I'm a big Ellen Burstyn (89) fan and she does no wrong in the lead as Helen. Ann-Margret's (80) Margot isn't far from her usual ditzy characters, Jane Curtin (73) is pretty funny as "mean girl with a medical alert bracelet" Janet, and Loretta Devine (at 71, the youngster of the group) is the nicest one as Sally. The principal men in the cast are James Caan (81) and Christopher Lloyd (82), and everyone is just fine.

Michael Lembeck directs from a script by Donald Martin, based on a story by Harrison Powell. 

The New York Times called Walter Murphy's score "saccharine," and I can't disagree, though the Times did not pan the movie overall. The soundtrack isn't available online anyway. 

I loved Burstyn's outfits and the terrific wardrobe is thanks to Cynthia Flynt.

Burstyn was last blogged for Pieces of a Woman, Ann-Margret for Going in Style, Curtin for Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and Caan for Elf.

Devine has nearly two hundred credits, from Waiting to Exhale (1995) and Crash (2004) to 81 episodes of Boston Public (2000-2004) to 22 of Grey's Anatomy (2005-2103) to 145 of Doc McStuffins (2012-2020), just to name a few. Lloyd, who also appeared in Going in Style, is, of course, best known for playing Jim in 84 episodes of Taxi (1978-1983) and Doc Brown in all three Back to the Future movies (1985, 1989, 1990), from his much longer list of roles.  

Lembeck did a lot of acting in the 1970s-90s and moved to directing after that, mostly TV episodes. I'm not familiar with any of Martin's dozens of credits, and Powell has four other producing credits. Murphy scored Ted and its sequel and wrote the 1976 hit A Fifth of Beethoven. Flynt has done costumes for a couple of dozen projects including A League of Their Own (1992).

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' average is a stinging 50% but its audiences are more royal at 87.

We paid full fare to rent this on iTunes on June 23. I recommend waiting until it's free and watch it for a date night, either for boomers or those who are close to some.