Moving On

Hollywood excels at putting beautiful young people on our screens, even if it means matching a young woman with a very older man as a love interest. It's long annoyed me but Hollywood don't listen to reviews.

This film is a delightful tale of 4 older people who all share a common history, and 2 of the surviving ones want to correct some of that history. The lengths they go to is absurd but very funny.

I always think of Lily Tomlin as a female Woody Allen and she never changes, she is always good. Jane Fonda remains beautiful and just as engaging on screen as she ever was. Malcom McDowell despite his age now still exudes the violent and threatening demeanour he displayed all those years ago in Clockwork Orange.

Not the best film of the year but a thoroughly enjoyable one, and a brilliant reminded that ageing actors can still give great performances.

It was a decent film. Almost like if Grace & Frankie had made a film themselves. It's not that great or groundbreaking on the drama side of things, but the comedy aspect of this dramedy is the silverlining of the film. Lily Tomlin shines and is easily the best part of the entire thing. Jane Fonda is servicable but, again, nothing groundbreaking or exciting from her. I liked the inclusion of Malcolm McDowell, he can be a welcome surprise sometimes and that is how I felt about him in this. The film did have some strange plotlines that felt out of place for the film and made the film drag in places. That's even with it's short 85 minute runtime, which still felt a bit long for this particular story. It was almost like the writers wrote this as an episode of a tv series and decided to expand it in a way that feels unnecessary. Overall, if you're a fan of the pair, you will at least find a bit of enjoyment. Fonda and Tomlin have a certain chemistry with each other and know how to play off each other very well.

3 murder attempts out of 5.

It's hard to believe it's been 63 years since Jane Fonda's big screen debut in "Tall Story", and her longevity has as much to do with her commitment to the characters she's played as it does to her innate talent in inhabiting them. Looking better here than in her other recent films like "80 for Brady" and "Book Club", she plays Claire, an eightysomething Ohio woman who flies to California to attend the funeral of one of her closest friends Joyce. Once at the wake, she confronts Joyce's widower Howard and asserts she will kill him that weekend for committing an unspeakable act a half-century earlier. The plot turns on this revelation into a prickly combination of melodrama and black comedy as Claire pairs with her long estranged friend Evelyn, a jaded lesbian cellist who fluctuates between supporting and rejecting Claire's monomaniacal mission. With Lily Tomlin in free-wheeling mode as Evelyn, they definitely have a lot of "Grace & Frankie"-type banter, but it resonates more here because both have repressed their feelings of deep-seeded resentment about how their lives had evolved. Richard Roundtree makes a welcome return as Claire's long-ago divorced first husband, and Malcolm McDowell makes Howard a venal character worthy of Claire's wrath. It doesn't all work, but it's good to see Tomlin and especially Fonda do such strong work thanks to Paul Weitz's dexterous direction and clever screenplay.

This film is done a huge disservice by being slotted into the "comedy" genre, but I'm disappointed to see people on this site rating it as though that miscategorization were a flaw of the film itself. It should be judged on its merits, as a realistic film with a lot of dramatic, painful moments amid the more humorous ones. Painful themes of homophobia, misogyny, and sexual violence are explored, but it never gets overly didactic-everything is grounded in storytelling, and the dark is offset by the light. If you want a zany screwball comedy, go elsewhere. But if you would like a really resonant film about female friendship, strength, and resilience that also happens to have some very funny moments, please treat yourself to this gem of a movie.

This is a terrific little black comedy that somehow flew under the radar. It's very slight - I like to call movies like this an appetizer - but what it does, it does very well. Black comedy is very tough to pull off, but this film does a splendid job of maintaining its bite while still allowing moments of emotion and humanity that never feel manipulative. It is not a politically correct movie, and many will balk at the origins of its humor, but that's what I personally appreciated about it. Both Fonda and Tomlin are great, and they've obviously honed their chemistry to an art form after their decades working together. One could rightfully call them the Lemmon & Matthau of today's cinema. They are a joy to watch here, together and apart, and Fonda is particularly radiant. There is also a fantastic, beautifully understated performance by Richard Roundtree as Fonda's ex-husband that exudes charm and elegance. This film succeeds in melding comedy and drama where many other, bigger movies have failed. Credit director and co-writer Weitz, who also directed Tomlin in one of her best performances in GRANDMA as well as the fantastic Hugh Grant film ABOUT A BOY. I encourage you to check this one out if you have the opportunity. It's a definite hidden treasure.