The Banger Sisters could have been something pretty special.
It could have been poignant…
Or it could have been hilarious.
But writer – director Bob Dolman opted for something somewhere in the middle, the results of which were only so-so.
Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon are the title characters in this film about two women who were notorious groupies back in the day. Some have said that Hawn’s character could almost be who her daughter Kate Hudson’s character Penny Lane in the great ALMOST FAMOUS might have grown up to become.
Maybe.
I’d like to think that Penny Lane went on to better things.
Let me say this now and get it over with, both Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon are getting older and older, but at times they are both still stunning women. Hey, what can I say, I liked "older women" when I was younger. I guess some things don’t change.
Anyway, this movie takes place some 20 years after the characters’ hey-day. Sarandon’s character, Luvinia, Vinny for short, has a family, played nicely by Robin Thomas (the hubby), Erika Christensen (the older daughter), and Eva Amurri (Sarandon’s real life daughter, as the slightly younger daughter). Christensen’s got a modest hit with Swimfan right now, but I know her best as a dope fiend in TRAFFIC. She can make it big if she tries hard enough…
Also in the film is Geoffrey Rush as an uptight recluse-writer type who is befriended by Hawn. Rush is a great actor, but I was very annoyed by his voice and affectation here. I think he was trying to hard to sound American, and it really sounded weird. He does fine otherwise though, even if his character is basically just a plot device.
Hawn and Sarandon do great jobs here. They make their characters kind of likable and kind of believable, despite some very cookie cutter circumstances. I wonder what film Dolman really wanted to make. Maybe if this was a smaller picture it would have been more substantial. Or maybe if it was a bigger picture, it would have gone in a different direction and been the better for it.