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There are more mundane reasons First Wives is a hit. It has three stars playing to their strengths: Midler the canny yenta, Keaton mining lodes of pruney anguish, Hawn a glorious hoot encased in her collagenized lips and sprawling ego. And before the film gets haggard in Act III, it's pretty darn funny, thanks to director Hugh Wilson (who wove a camaraderie of losers in his TV show WKRP in Cincinnati), screenwriter Robert Harling (Steel Magnolias) and rewriter Paul Rudnick (The Addams Family).
First Wives is only a movie, and not nearly a perfect one. And its makers are, darn it, men. But it restores a little balance to phallocentric Hollywood. It says women can thrive in the good old '30s way: by being smart, sexy, human. Best of all, it doesn't stand alone, a defiant Thelma without her Louise; instead, it mingles with its sister films in a proud, growing community. If women can create, star in and see more movies like this one, that will be their sweetest revenge.