The Hot Flashes (2013)

A group of middle aged women play basketball and prove a point.

Director:

Susan Seidelman

Writer:

Brad Hennig

Stars:

Brooke Shields, Wanda Sykes, Daryl Hannah

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Brooke Shields	...	Beth Humphrey
Daryl Hannah	...	Ginger Peabody
Wanda Sykes	...	Florine Clarkston
Andrea Frankle	...	Kayla Rash
Eric Roberts	...	Laurence Humphrey
Jessica Rothe	...	Millie Rash (as Jessica Rothenberg)
Charlotte Graham	...	Jocelyn Humphrey
Carl Palmer	...	Coach Slaughter
Michal Anna Marble	...	Team Manager
Morrey McElroy	...	Nurse Morrey
Maria Mason	...	Workshop Instructor
Camryn Manheim	...	Roxie Rosales
Virginia Madsen	...	Clementine Winks
Gillian Bolt	...	Shannon
Larry Tausch	...	Square Dance Caller

Storyline

An unlikely basketball team of unappreciated middle-aged Texas women, all former high school champs, challenge the current arrogant high school girls' state champs to a series of games to raise money for breast cancer prevention. Sparks fly as these marginalized women go to comic extremes to prove themselves on and off the court, and become a national media sensation.

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Plot Keywords:

basketball | breast cancer | menopause | husband wife relationship | family relationships | 

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Taglines:

Everyone thought their glory days were over. Everyone thought wrong.

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Genres:

Comedy | Sport

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some sexual content and drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 August 2013 (Spain)

Also Known As:

50 anni in rosa

Filming Locations:

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$4,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Vertical Entertainment, 4K Productions, The Hot Flashes LLC

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The movie begins with a close up of Brooke Shield's face, as an homage to Pretty Baby, Brooke's first film.

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Goofs

The truck parks in the second spot in the church's parking lot. When they get out of the truck they are in the last spot.

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Crazy Credits

During the credits there are several outtakes and bloopers from the film.

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Connections

Referenced in Chelsea Lately: Episode #6.17 (2012)

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Soundtracks

I Don't Want You
Written by James Kalamasz and Danny Kirsic
Performed by The Wildlife Band
Courtesy of 5 Alarm Music

User Reviews

This would've been subversive - or at least more serviceable - ten years ago

There is a sharp comic satire buried beneath the clichés and underwhelming effect Susan Seidelman's The Hot Flashes leaves on a viewer. Despite a capable directing effort on her part and the cast's evident enthusiasm for the material, this is a comedy that plays things safely and one that never is funnier than the idea of a basketball team called "The Hot Flashes." There's enough in the film to hold interest but not enough to cordially recommend.

The plot centers around Beth (Brooke Shields), a middle-aged woman currently going through menopause, and her family, made up of her husband (Eric Roberts) and her daughter. When Beth, who is known to take up numerous hobbies, however, not known to carry them out in a meaningful way, realizes that the local mammogram unit will be closing due to lack of financing on her part, she decides to form a basketball team called "The Hot Flashes" with several girls from her quiet Texas town named "Burning Bush." The goal in mind is for the team to play the championship school basketball team and raise $25,000 to save the mammogram unit.

As upsetting as this will be for some people to hear, the thematic idea that "women can do more than men" is hardly as subversive as it was so many years ago. While films should exist that show off a strong central female or more, having a film predicated off that idea and nothing more is beginning to become tiresome. The Hot Flashes even manages to downplay its central premise of menopause, offering little comedic or dramatic points about the inevitable, life-changing stage women must go through, only offering the redundant piece of optimism that despite menopausal setbacks they still have game.

I recently watched a film called Coffee Town, which was a simple, pleasant comedy centered around three characters who spend their days at the local cafe, using it as a free-office with Wi-Fi, coffee, and all the baked goods they need. While a tad vulgar, the film managed to disregard the idea that a film needs to be oppressively raunchy in order to be funny. The Hot Flashes does something similar to Coffee Town, which is make most of the characters possess wholesome morality, or at least a moral compass. Not to mention, their southern drawl is a sweet diversion from the city-slicking bawdiness that has been commonplace in cinema recently. And it's always nice to see a film maturely explore the reality of age as well as the optimistic way of looking at it.

But that doesn't excuse the idea that The Hot Flashes feels like Bridesmaids without a bite and that isn't because of the lack of language, sexual content, or gross-out humor. It's because Bridesmaids manages to try and make its characters come to life, using real-life situations and bittersweet reality. The characters in The Hot Flashes know they're getting older and there's no true reality to face since they're constantly reminding themselves they still have it. Not to mention, it doesn't help that the team itself is composed of the good mother, the sassy black lady, the chubby girl with the foul-mouthed, the town tramp, and the simple cowgirl.

Starring: Brooke Shields, Daryl Hannah, Virginia Madsen, Wanda Sykes, Eric Roberts, Mark Povinelli, and Camryn Manheim. Directed by: Susan Seidelman.