movie: Grandma
starring: Lily Tomlin, Sam Elliot
genre; Drama, Comedy
year: 2015
format: Netflix Canada
plot: When a teenaged girl shows up on her grandmother's door asking for money, the two spend the day going across L.A. trying to collect old debts.
This was a cute film, that was suppose to pack a punch. I thought it worked as a comedic tour for Tomlin, but didn't get much of the buddy film-ness it was suppose to give.
We see the Tomlin character, grieving over the loss of her former wife, and thus forcing her current girlfriend to break up with her. When only hours later, her granddaughter shows up pregnant, asking for cash for an abortion, we're taken through a citywide day trip while they revisit the grandmother's lost friends/lovers.
There is a scene where they end up at the house of the baby's father, and he gets beat up by the Tomlin character. This is sort of balanced by the grandmother going to her ex-husband's house. Both women have to face the men who broke their hearts, neither handling it very well. But their biggest fear is actually having to tell the girl's mother that she is about to have the abortion. Both grandmother and granddaughter, seem to be terrified of the over worked career woman.
The generation gap is expressed fully in this one. From the point of view of the hippy grandmother, to the corporate single mother, down to the drifter granddaughter.
what did I learn? I know this was a women's rights type of film, but I think it could have done better if it let go of the message it held in it's hand so tightly, and had either been a straight up comedy or a straight up drama. It just seemed to loose something in translation.
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