Virginia Madsen in The Hot Flashes

The first time I came across this one was on Netflix. I wasn’t paying particularly close attention to Virginia Madsen’s career at that point and I saw her standing there with a bunch of ladies and a basketball.

It was late at night and I’d nothing else to do so I hit play. And, damn. I don’t know if it was because it was late at night or the idea of seeing something new from Virginia after a long time but I properly enjoyed it. For what it was at least.

The film centres around a group of middle aged women, some at the time when menopause is an issue in their lives. Beth Humphrey (Brooke Shields) is one of these women. She’s trying to get herself tested for Breast Cancer but is upset to learn her local Testing Centre is closing down due to the lack of funding.

Not just upset because it’s closing but upset because one of her close friends had died three years prior, she’d left the Centre a substantial amount of money so it could keep going and maybe help someone be more fortunate than herself. It turns out there has been a mistake with some paperwork and so the Centre can’t get the help it so desperately needs. For it to remain open it needs another $25,000.
Not willing to let it drop, Beth gets in touch with some of her old high school friends and arranges with them to raise the money for the Testing Centre to remain open with money being charged for various things to see them play and making bets on themselves to win.

Ginger Peabody (Daryl Hannah), Florine Clarkson (Wanda Sykes), Roxie Rosales (Camryn Manheim) and Clementine Winks (Mrs Madsen) have made it through life in many different ways with varying degrees of success, but they agree to help. Some are more willing than others…

And thus the ladies set about trying to prove everyone who thinks they can’t do it wrong and the film goes on. It’s an underdog’s tale, you know the ones.

I guess in some ways it’s kind of a modern take on Long Gone. It’s the same kind of story when you step back and look at it. Not a bad thing at all, just a Virginia related observation.
It does actually have a very noble and worthwhile purpose by bringing some awareness to Breast Cancer, at the film’s premiere the ladies walked down a pink carpet instead of a red one and it served as a benefit for the American Cancer Society.

Sheryl Crow, a breast cancer survivor herself would give an original song to the film “Leaning in a New Direction”

The film was released to mixed reviews, some enjoyed it for what it was (like myself) and others, in my opinion, took it all too seriously and bashed it for no real good reason other than they could. Not everything needs to be deep and meaningful for it to be worth watching.

And, personally I think it’s also worth some points for being a tale of “woman of a certain age” as well, they could so easily have swapped out the cast for some young nubile things which would have lessened the message behind the film. It crossed my mind when I was originally watching it but it seems as though the reviewers, and critics, of the film also picked up on the fact. Good.

[ahem] – Getting back to the film…
Virginia has spoken highly of the film, in an interview with The AV Club she has this to say;

“it was a straight-up offer, which is always appreciated. It’s always wonderful to just not have to audition for something. They sent me the script, and I had to be there in, like, two days, but… I think I probably said yes before I read it, because of the cast and the director and just that it was a story about all of these incredible women. I mean, all that cast on one script? I was like, “This can’t be real. This is mine? You want me to be in this with these girls? Yes!” So I said yes without finishing the script. I think I read about 30 pages, and I was like, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” And, luckily, I was in really good shape, so I was ready and up for the challenge. I generally don’t like any sports that involve running. [Laughs.]

But the thing is, when you get a role, actors will do anything to make that role sing. Just the fact that I can have live bees all over me in Candyman proves that we’ll do anything, basically, for a good performance. [Laughs.] So I thought, “Well, I don’t know how to play basketball, but if I look cool, then it’ll be okay.” But that didn’t work, because with this, you really have to know how to dribble the ball, and I couldn’t even do that. They’d all had a basketball clinic, and we had a great coach named Carla who was a professional basketball player, but I pretty much went from the airport to the court, so they all just rallied around me. They just played and played and played. And while shooting, every moment between takes I was learning how to dribble, how to do a layup, and it was really, really hard. It was physically very challenging, which is exciting and appealing to me. I love physical challenge

And it turned out I was pretty good at it! As soon as I knew how to do a layup, I was like, “Oh, that’s it! That’s how you do that!” The girls were really badass, and they just helped me to feel confident. That day, we became a team.”

And you know what? It is good to see all the ladies come together here, I’d like to say Virginia steals the show, but she doesn’t. There is an obvious camaraderie about the gang and I’d be willing to bet there are a few tales to be told from behind the cameras. Of course, the film reunites Virginia Madsen with Brooke Shields who were both previously in After Sex together, and, this is a much better film for both of their talents.

Availability:
Good. Lots of cheap copies on DVD (in a snazzy pink case of course) and it can be found on streaming (like I did originally).

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