Ugh.
I am not in any positions to grade the efforts in Ya-Ya
because I do not know enough about it. I understand everything that
goes on during the plot and even what the characters are trying to
accomplish, but I can’t relate to anything that happens. This is
because I am a man (Oh my gosh! I didn’t know that!). Women can
understand this movie and even laugh at the little occurrences that us
males call stupid. For me, there was no purpose to the entire film,
and that’s why I didn’t enjoy it. There are some quirky moments that I
felt involved in, but nothing ever sparked on the screen, aside from
some candles that the “Ya-Ya Sisters” seemingly worship. The
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood was not painful for me to
watch, but it was pretty bad, and things just didn’t work.
The film opens to several girls around a
campfire in the late night, who appear to be taking some kind of oath.
We find that they are forming the “Ya-Ya Sisterhood,” which entails
some kind of spiritual gunk that is too boring to pick up on. We then
fast forward to a much later point in time when all of the girls have
grown to be old, elderly ladies. We first see the grown daughter of
the leader of the “Ya-Ya.” She is with her fiancé, who she has just
held off a marriage with. This news is published in a magazine because
she is the director of a major play. Her mother, who is the head of
the “Ya-Ya Sisterhood” sees this and immediately calls her up. The
woman, named Sidda, knows that its her mother on the phone when it
rings and urges her fiancé not to pick it up. After three rings, he
picks it up because of the growing curiosity that the annoying noise
builds. Sure enough, its her, and she wants to talk to Sidda. When
Sidda picks up, her mother throws a fit because of the delay of plans.
Her mother is known for throwing these tantrums, and when her
“sisters” find out they rush over to her home. What do they cure her
pain with? That’s an easy one: Bloody Mary.
The fellow Ya-Ya Sisters feel that this is
nothing short of a crisis. They must fly to
New York and talk to Sidda to clear
things up! Sidda is not at all happy to see them when they arrive
because, frankly, she hates the people from her past. They want to
take her back down South, where they live and she used to, but they
need to find a way to fly her there. She won’t willingly go on her
honor, and they don’t have the intelligence to reason with her, so
they are going to have to take rather drastic measures. When they take
her out to dinner and she leaves to make a phone call, they drug up
her beverage. When she takes another sip out of the drink when back,
she falls asleep, exactly how the sisters intended it to be like. They
fly her first class down to their home, and she immediately screams
when she notices that she is down south after waking up. Over the
period of time that she stays they tell her many of their old stories
from a scrapbook entitled: “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya
Sisterhood,” where the film gets its name. These tales are acted out
on video, and aside from Bullock, are the movies only riveting
highlight. As she hears more of these, Sidda finds that the reason she
held off her marriage is much to blame on her parent’s terrible
relationship problems when she was a little girl.
For me, and most other men, Ya-Ya
is an utter disaster and disgrace to filmmaking everywhere. But I’m
convinced that women will enjoy the material, simply because of the
way a female’s mind works. If you want a chick’s take on Ya-Ya: read
reviews from Claudia Puig of USA Today or Mary Ann Johansson of The
Flick Filosifer (Yea, its supposed to be spelled wrong). For us guys,
there are the exceptional performances from Bullock and Burstyn to
watch; but absolutely nothing else. I never thought I’d see the day
where I’d deem the recent Bad Company and Scooby
Doo better than something else; but here it is. Ya-Ya
is stupid-stupid shit-ah.
-Danny, Bucket Reviews