POMS, the new film about women of a certain age starting a cheerleading squad in their retirement community, isn’t starting off on the right foot buzz-wise. Last week, in a wide-ranging and juicy interview with Vulture, Anjelica Huston called it “humiliating.” Though she didn’t mention the film by name, it’s near impossible that she was talking about a different movie about “old-lady cheerleader[s].” However, Huston either hasn’t read the script or seen the film because not only is POMS darkly funny, it treats its characters as complex human beings while maintaining an infectious energy that makes it a crowd-pleaser even for viewers outside of its stars’ demographic.
Admittedly, when it first starts, the film doesn’t seem like a fun romp. After deciding at the last minute to not do chemotherapy, Martha (Diane Keaton) sells all her things, leaves the New York City apartment she’s lived in for 46 years and moves to Sun Springs, a retirement community in Georgia. There she meets Sheryl (Jacki Weaver), an unrepentant party girl who insists on becoming Martha’s friend. Required to join a club, Jacki encourages Martha to fulfill the dream of being a high school cheerleader she was forced to abandon after her mother fell ill. Assembling a rag-tag team that includes the likes of Rhea Perlman and Pam Grier, the women train to compete at the community’s Senior Showcase.
Though Martha’s diagnosis–which she hides from the squad–hangs over the film and gives the story much of its dramatic tension, the best thing about POMS is that neither it nor its characters brood over the characters’ age or mortality. Rather, the women are both acutely aware of their ages and not discouraged by it. When Martha sees an absurd commercial for a service that turns a dead person’s ashes into a firework so they can be sent off, “with a bang,” she nods in excitement at the idea. When Sheryl invites Martha to lunch for the first time, she brings her to a wake to stuff food into ziplock bags and Tupperware to eat later—all while raving that the best things about the retirement community is that someone is always dying.
There and throughout, Weaver is possibly the film’s biggest asset. Bawdy and brash, Sheryl is always ready with a quip and Weaver makes the performance feel effortless. When a young cheerleader at her grandson’s school (where Sheryl also half-asses a substitute teaching job for extra cash) says something nasty about the Sun Springs squad, Sheryl retorts, “Isn’t there a quarterback somewhere you could be giving a handjob?” It’s shocking and hilarious, but that wit would quickly become tiresome if Weaver didn’t also make Sheryl seem like a good person too. It’s at first unclear why she would pursue Martha’s friendship when she’s clearly so hostile to that friendship, but she clearly senses Martha’s depression without knowing its reason and it slowly becomes clear that beneath that pushy attitude and constant horniness is a caring person.
In the same way, while the film–with a story by director Zara Hayes and a script by Shane Atkinson–is mostly a high-concept comedy, there’s also a core of meaning and emotion that elevates it. Though Hayes and Atkinson often treat the things that happen to the Sun Springs squad with humor, they never have fun at their expense. Yes, the film makes hay of the actresses’ aging bodies in the first practice scenes, but it also addresses the way people dismiss them simply because of their age and gender. When the son of Phyllis Sommerville’s character becomes condescending and dismissive of his mother’s desire to spend a mere $100 on a cheer uniform, we feel the prejudices and selfishness at work in the way that loss of autonomy and respect diminishes the character.
Still, while that storyline is tough to watch, it also makes the moments where the women reassert their value that much more meaningful. In one of the film’s loveliest scenes, Martha tells the team to look at themselves in the mirrors that line their practice room’s walls and then collectively yell one thing they like about their bodies. It feels downright revolutionary to see older women reassert their worth for themselves and the audience in a society so steeped in deciding women basically become worthless as they age. Choosing to cheerlead so late in life may open these women up to ridicule, but it also gives them newfound companionship, confidence and for Martha, a chance to live out one last dream in the twilight of her life.
That said, while the film’s willingness to take its characters seriously is its biggest strength, it may also be one of its weaknesses. It would be a disservice to the film to describe exactly how, but the stakes of the final act can feel so high that they become too unrealistic to buy. However, perhaps fixating on the realism of POMS kind of misses the point. Sure, some of the final beats feel a little too convenient and the circumstances of the final performance are hard to believe, but maybe that’s not so bad. Keaton and the entire cast are having so much fun, only a stick in the mud could resist getting swept up in their joy. Get on board, Anjelica Huston.
