Review: A star-studded retirement home in ‘Queen Bees’

The new retirement home comedy “Queen Bees" follows Helen, played by the majestic Ellen Burstyn, who reluctantly moves into a senior community while her beautiful suburban house is being fixed up after an accidental kitchen fire

There are two genres I tend to approach with extra caution: Slashers and retirement home comedies. Both have found me covering my eyes for not entirely unrelated reasons. Yes, the dismembering is more metaphorical than the latter, but sometimes it’s equally hard to stomach seeing a great group of actors reduced to incontinence jokes. Also, I’m still recovering from the Diane Keaton movie “Poms.” The latest retirement home comedy is “ Queen Bees,” about Helen (played by the majestic Ellen Burstyn), who reluctantly moves into a senior community while her beautiful suburban house is being fixed up after an accidental kitchen fire. Helen is still sharp and active and capable of living alone, but her real estate agent daughter (Elizabeth Mitchell) just seems to want to get the inevitable transition to out of the way. Helen, for her part, suspects her daughter just wants to sell her home and she may not be wrong. For as lovely as Helen’s house is, the retirement community is pretty nice and full of active and social seniors. It’s also stacked with talented actors: Alongside Burstyn in this senior home is James Caan, Ann-Margret, Jane Curtin, Loretta Devine and Christopher Lloyd, all of whom it’s a delight to simply see on screen and none of whom are subjected to tasteless gags (although some are borderline). “Queen Bees,” directed by Michael Lembeck and written by Donald Martin, isn’t exactly a bad movie, but it’s not exactly good either. It has a decent heart and some lovely moments, but it also has many of the clichés that we’ve come to expect: An incontinence joke, a marijuana scene, stroke gags, a truly horrendous score and an appalling lack of curiosity about the characters we’re asked to spend a few hours with.