Grandma ***½ (2015, Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer, Laverne Cox, Sam Elliott, Nat Wolff) – Movie Review

Odd film, Grandma, sad and uncomfortable, yet funny, truthful and haunting. For all its rough edges, it works really well with a sharp breath of fresh air and is memorable for giving a grand role to the 76-year-old Lily Tomlin.

It helps enormously that Tomlin is funny and charming against the odds of her acerbic character – a lesbian grandmother called Elle Reid, who decides to help her teenaged grand-daughter Sage (Julia Garner) find the $600 she needs for an abortion. Elle leads with her big mouth and vicious tongue, but she’s witty and wise, and wears her big heart pretty near to her sleeve.

Elle takes Sage go on a road trip in her battered vintage car, meeting Sage’s crappy, uncaring boyfriend (Nat Wolff) who gets a thump from Elle when he won’t help Sage, as well as tattooist Deathy (Laverne Cox), Elle’s old boyfriend Karl (Sam Elliott) and finally Sage’s horribly bossy mother (Marcia Gay Harden), estranged from both her mother and her daughter. [The vintage car is Tomlin’s own 1955 Dodge Royal.]

The film starts with Elle throwing out her new, much younger partner Olivia (Judy Greer) – ‘You’re a footnote’ – and reminiscing about her 37 years with Vi, the love of her life. Her nastiness to Olivia is contrasted to her hurt and caring about the dead life-partner, who was also mom to Sage. Elle may be a life force but she has been unable to move on since Vi’s death and her life as a minor literary figure is long behind her.

With a fresh, quirky vibe, it feels like it was all made up as they go along – surely much of the dialogue is improvised – but it is written and directed by Paul Weitz, the director of American Pie and About a Boy. Weitz keeps it moving along briskly, stokes up the emotional heat, keeps it real, and keeps it short at just 78 minutes. If that seems short for a feature, it feels just right when you see it.

It was made for just $600,000, and grossed an encouraging $6.8 million in the US. Its prestige is boosted by its Sundance and London Film festival screenings.

Both Tomlin and Wolff were in Weitz’s 2013 film Admission.

http://derekwinnert.com/admission-2013-tina-fey-paul-rudd-nat-wolff-lily-tomlin-movie-review/

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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