Can you imagine anything more delicious than Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin co-starring in a movie with Richard Roundtree and Malcolm McDowell... in 1972? That was the year Fonda won an Oscar for "Klute" and the wacky "Laugh-In" star Tomlin released her first comedy album. The two men were riding high with "Shaft" and "A Clockwork Orange" respectively. Just think of what an ensemble film that played to every one of its strengths 50 years ago could have produced.
That is an illusion, of course. You can't go back, and you can't do things again, but it's never too late to move on. At least, that's the message writer-director Paul Weitz delivers in "Moving On," a brash feature-length sitcom with a #MeToo twist in which two estranged friends reunite to settle decades-old scores.
Director: Paul Weitz
Writer: Paul Weitz
Stars: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Malcolm McDowell
Weitz began his career with "American Pie," which introduced the word "MILF" into the English language, and has basically made a career of telling decent, throwaway stunting stories ever since ("About a Boy," "Admission" , “Being Flynn”). His only really great movie was “Grandma,” which he wrote for Tomlin, a politically charged indie about a teenage girl who goes to her lesbian grandmother for help financing an abortion. This latest project is obviously an excuse for Weitz to collaborate with her again; it was Tomlin's idea to involve Fonda.
These days, it's not a surprise to see the two actresses together. Fonda and Tomlin and seven seasons on "Grace and Frankie," and they have such good comedic chemistry that their first film collaboration is more of a comfort than a surprise: a "grumpy old lady" comedy, in the tradition of Matthau and Lemmon. , where they play Claire (Fonda) and Evelyn (Tomlin), two college roommates who meet for a friend's funeral. We expect them to act, and they don't waste a lot of time doing it.
“I'm going to kill you,” Claire threatens the dead woman's husband, Howard (McDowell), as he walks through the door. A few minutes later, Evelyn shows up drunk and makes an even bigger entrance, interrupting Howard's eulogy. Then the next day, she drops a bombshell at the memorial, announcing that the loving wife and mother they just buried was her lover.
Claire really does intend to kill Howard, for reasons much harsher than a Paul Weitz movie might suggest, and the next 70 minutes are spent toggling between that plan (it's harder than advocates of the Second Amendment to buy a murder weapon in the state of California) and deal with unfinished business, like making things right with her ex-husband Ralph (Roundtree), whom she divorced without explanation all those years ago.
Tomlin is here mainly for emotional support and comic relief: to ask the main character if she really wants to kill someone and to support his decision, whatever it is. That was essentially Tomlin's role in "Grandma" as well, making no moral equivalencies between abortion and manslaughter. She is a modern-minded lesbian who does what she wants and supports the right of others to do the same, a mindset that extends to the visiting boy she meets in the halls of her retirement home, furthering this effeminate boy's desire to playing dress up and telling him how beautiful he is.
Tomlin is great in this mode. The script is as bland as the "cardboard" served in the cafeteria at her nursing home, but she manages to inject vinegar and attitude into it as she accepts the realities of aging. Getting old doesn't mean giving up, Evelyn remembers; it means finding a new way to laugh at life's litany of disappointments. Evelyn may roll her eyes and call Claire names, like "crazy" and "crazy," but she was the only person Claire told about what happened with Howard.
The assault destabilized Claire's life, destroyed her marriage, and went unreported for all these years. It's an incredible game, not the matter of buying a gun and pointing it at a man who has been living with a different memory of the same incident for decades, but the trauma shared by so many women who have had to "move on" without justice. Here, it's Claire's word against Howard's, though no one in the audience will have trouble distinguishing the truth.
Fonda does not exaggerate. This isn't an Oscar movie, and she has no interest in trying to top Jodie Foster's breakout Charles Bronson role in "The Brave One." It's just a matter of what she chooses to do about it. Laughter can be just as cathartic as violence. You'll never believe the gun Claire ends up with. When that fails, she's willing to resort to smothering him with a pillow or running him over with a car.
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