Grandma review: Lily Tomlin does good by playing Bad Grandma…
Grandma review
Grandma comes to the screen from director Paul Weitz, the American filmmaker who has filled his career with American teen comedies with the genre defining American Pie, solid British comedy fare in About A Boy, writing the animated bug movie that wasn’t A Bug’s Life in the 90s (Antz), and the more recent third movie in the Fockers franchise, Little Fockers. With Grandma, which he also writes, Weitz delivers his smallest, most indie film to date; a character-driven comedy drama featuring a career-best Lily Tomlin in the title role.
Tomlin stars as Elle, a sixty-something poet living on the outskirts of Los Angeles, who is going through a break-up with her girlfriend on four months, Olivia (Judy Greer). On the same morning of the break-up, Elle’s teenage granddaughter, Sage (Julia Garner) rolls up to her home asking for a loan of $600 to pay for an abortion. With Elle temporarily broke, and not having a credit card (she cut them up to make wind-chimes), the pair hit the road to visit a host of acquaintances, friends and old flames to try to bundle together he cash before Sage’s appointment at the hospital later that afternoon.
Grandma review
Weitz’s career has been a little up and down in terms of how his films have been received over the years. While his directorial debut, American Pie fired off the boom in teen sex comedies at the end of the 1990s, and his About The Boy was one of the better Hugh Grant rom-coms, misfires like Little Fockers and American Dreamz from the last decade saw Weitz’s stock fall a little. Following on from the decent Admission, in which Tomlin also appeared, Weitz is on top form with this superb little film, which has the charm of an independent movie as well as the appeal of a mainstream comedy, which is much down to its brilliant cast. Marcia Gay Harden appears as Elle’s super-charged, super uptight daughter Judy, and is superb in the two or three scenes in which she appears. There’s also appearance from the likes of current hot-stuff, Paper Towns alumni Nat Wolff as Sage’s almost clichéd bum-boyfriend Cam, with whom Elle deals with quite nicely, John Cho as a jobs-worth coffee shop manager, and an absolutely outstanding Sam Elliott as Elle’s former husband Karl, who nearly steals the movie with the one, extremely emotional, and excellently acted scene in which he appears. The dynamic between Elle and Karl, and so Tomlin and Elliott, is just as magnificent and a joy to watch.
Grandma review
But this is one-hundred percent Lily Tomlin’s movie. She appears in every scene, and her relentless delivery of countless, brilliant one-liners from Weitz’s excellent script, are a wonder to watch. She owns this movie.
Running at under 80-minutes, Grandma‘s pace is spot-on, and it’s hard to fault. Witty, heart-rendering; a film that will tug on the heart-strings and make you laugh out loud multiple times throughout, Grandma is not only the funniest films a this year’s BFI London Film Festival, where we first caught it, but flat-out one of our favourite comedies of the year.
Grandma review by Paul Heath, September 2015.
Grandma is released on December 11th in UK cinemas.
