When retired high school teacher Eva loses her husband, she mistakenly receives a $5,000,000 check on her deceased husband's $50,000 life insurance policy. Her friend Maddie, whose husband has just left her for a younger woman, convinces her to keep the money and they both depart to live it up at a resort on Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands.
Once there, Eva is courted by an older gentleman who accompanies her in town. In the local casino she wins almost half a million euros despite knowing nothing about card games. Eva ends up in bed with him after a 7-year dry period without sex with her husband.
Her friend Maddie loses money, but finds a young virile man who has just lost his girlfriend, and happens to like older women. Their sex rejuvenates her, but in the process he strains his back.
In the meantime, the American insurance investigator is on Eva's trail, together with her mostly estranged daughter, to get back the $5,000,000 for the Beneficial Life Insurance Company, but they are trumped by the Company's European representative who accepts a bribe to let her escape rather than sending her to the worst woman's prison in the Spanish-speaking world.
Maddie realizes that the older gentleman is a scam artist, and with the hotel detective finds out that he's working for Don Carlos, the richest man on the island. Eva and Maddie escape from the insurance investigator and go to Don Carlos, who is feared by everyone who knows him - except his firecracker of a Brazilian second wife, who tears into him when his bodyguard, who is her lover and the father of her child, is disturbed by the guard's gratuitous gun fire. Besides cheating older women, Don Carlos also swindles wine snobs by selling them inferior wine with impressive labels from classy estates, though the bottles are occasionally dropped by the older gentleman, who is known under various names including Bix.
The story ends on a happy note because Don Carlos gives Eva back her winnings: it turns out that Don Carlos was an exchange student in Liberty, IL, where Eva was everyone's favorite teacher, as has been said by various people who help her along during the movie.
After paying back the insurance company and paying her hotel bill, Eva still has over $200,000. She gives half to Maddie, who decides to stay a little longer with her young lover; and Eva goes back to the US. Later, at a beach ceremony, where Eva, her daughter and others seemingly are laying flowers on the ocean as a tribute to someone whom the audience may assume to be Maddie, it is revealed Maddie is fine, and has just married her young lover.
The film's production history was a protracted one beset by financial difficulties and involving multiple crew and cast changes. On April 9, 2012, Dimension Films first acquired the film, with Howard Deutch set to direct and Shirley MacLaine, Jacki Weaver and Alan Arkin joining the cast.[7] By September of that year, Jack Black, Maria Bello and Jon Voight were added to the cast.[8][9] Weaver, Arkin, Black, Bello, and Voight would all eventually drop out to pursue other projects.[10]
The making of Wild Oats inspired Shirley MacLaine’s 2016 memoir Above the Line: My 'Wild Oats' Adventure.[14][15]
Release
The film's distribution in the U.S. was set to be handled by The Weinstein Company—then also undergoing its own financial problems—and its international distribution was to be handled by Sony.[6] The film ultimately premiered on Lifetime on August 22, 2016,[16] and entered a limited release on September 16, that year.[17] The film made just over $40,000 in domestic grosses.[18]
In February 2017, Impex Entertainment filed a lawsuit against Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions for $1 million alleging failure to pay a $855,000 licensing fee no later than 10 days following the film's theatrical release, and an additional $95,000 payment, which Sony refused to pay.[20] In March 2017, Sony filed suit against one of the film's producers, stating the film's premiere on Lifetime breached a contractual theatrical requirement and thus, the licensing fees fall to him.[18]
