(From IMDb.com)

There are plenty of ups and downs in Girls Trip

How about a balcony-to-balcony zip wire trip over a bustling New Orleans street where one woman’s personal momentum stops short but the comedy’s acrobatic adrenaline and basic bawdiness soars?

Or a fruit-involved boudoir primer that turns into a doleful and painful experience?

This 2-hour, 2-minute buddy movie directed by Malcolm D. Lee goes to some pretty daring places for sure.

The rekindled friendships of the main quartet of women, you see, aren’t always clicking in the screenplay from Kenya Barris and Tracy Oliver from a story that Erica Rivinoja also had a hand in. They are old college pals so close that they even had a name: The Flossy Posse. But the decades, deeds done, successes for some and less for others have taken a toll.

Then the most prominent of the four calls for them to come with her to Essence Fest as she and her husband are on the cusp of the signing of a major sponsorship deal.

A good moment for all. (From IMDb.com)

Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, Tiffany Haddish and Jada Pinkett Smith make the most of the mercurial relationships that fly between the four. They rediscover the good and mine some not-so-good that may have crept into their lives since those glory years.

Some of it is a bit unbelievable. Latifah and Pinkett Smith look at least a decade older than Hall and Haddish, for instance, to be old college mates. The evil deeds done by the conniving husband were glossed over for this long by a woman this smart? The wild one of the four really could be this out-there and live to tell about it? The website author would go this low after working for the New York Times?

Anyway, the bar-room musical number is something to see, for sure.

And the girls do end up knowing their age, thankfully.