Poms a bomb for Jacki Weaver and Diane Keaton as gyrating, grinning grannies

Pomsmight have its heart in the right place with its message about valuing the elderly. But it is a truly awful effort from go to whoa and our Jacki Weaver deserves better.

Can’t go faulting the message underlined with the thickest black storytelling texta possible by Poms.

Age should not be a barrier for anything in life.

Can’t go shooting the messengers in Poms, even though it is a truly awful effort from go to whoa.

It is not the fault of the cast - a majority of them experienced elderly performers who rarely get to work anymore - that they are stuck inside a feelgood movie destined to leave a majority of viewers feeling nothing.

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Diane Keaton and Jacki Weaver in a scene from the movie Poms. Roadshow Pictures.

Might be best to level all blame for this calcified husk of corn on how poorly the message has been written.

From the moment we meet Martha (Diane Keaton), a terminally ill woman churlishly checking in to a retirement village, the cloying contrivances just never let up.

Just when it seems Martha is going to end her days as a grouchy couch potato, nosy neighbour Sheryl (Jacki Weaver) nudges her into starting a cheerleading squad for ladies of a certain age.

Each member of the troupe has a trope that helps you remember who they are. Sheryl is the sexpot. One lady has an ignorant husband. Another has an ignorant son. Someone else missed their shot as a cheerleader when they were a teenager and have something to prove. And so on.

As nice as it is to see the likes of Keaton, Weaver, Rhea Perlman (remember her as the mouthy waitress Carla in the classic TV series Cheers?) and Pam Grier (who once had her own Tarantino movie as the title character in Jackie Brown) all together on screen, it is dismaying to see them given so little of note to do.

Diane Keaton and Jacki Weaver in a scene from the movie Poms. Roadshow Pictures.

They all deserve better, as do the mature-age audiences who could really do with something decent to watch in this superhero-dominated era.

The filmmakers behind Poms simply seem to think that if they keep filling the screen with grinning and gyrating grannies, the rest will look after itself.

It is an approach that, ironically, gets old far too quickly.

POMS (PG)

Rating: One stars (1 out of 5)

Director: Zara Hayes (feature debut)

Starring: Diane Keaton, Jacki Weaver, Rhea Perlman, Pam Grier, Celia Weston.

Beware the movie that cannot act its agelessness

For all things movies follow Leigh on Twitter: @leighpaatsch