Grandma’s honesty makes it a cut above
FILM | Chuck Koplinski
You have to give Elle Reid credit. She’s lived her life on her terms and has made no apologies about it. However, now that she’s pushing 70 and her much-younger girlfriend has broken up with her, Elle’s starting to realize that there’s a cost for going your own way. To be sure, being part of the status quo requires a great deal of personal compromise, and the cost of having your soul die slowly, day-by-day, is incalculable. There’s something a bit noble in the way Elle’s eschewed a nine-to-five job and followed the beat of her own drummer. However, society doesn’t like what it doesn’t understand. There’s a price to be paid for living out loud and being brutally honest with anyone who crosses your path, and that day of reckoning arrives for Elle at the most inopportune of times.
Paul Weitz’s Grandma is a physically modest film but one of grand emotional scope. Propelled by Lily Tomlin’s powerhouse performance as Elle, the movie is refreshingly honest in the way it deals with familial injuries that fester, relationships that are strained to the breaking point and damage that can never truly heal. Credit Weitz and his strong cast for rendering this material in a sincere manner, never once taking a maudlin approach or opting for a feel-good solution.
Divided into six short chapters, the film covers a day in the life of Elle and her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) who’s come to her for help. Seems she’s gotten pregnant, her ne’er-do-well boyfriend refuses to help and she’s made an appointment to
have an abortion later that day. Problem is, she doesn’t have the $600 for the procedure and is hoping her grandmother can lend her the money. Unfortunately, Elle’s a bit short as well, having paid off her debts and cut up her credit cards in an act of defiance. With the clock ticking, she and Sage set out to look up old friends in order to beg or borrow the money they need, opening old wounds in the process.
The mini-odyssey they embark on requires Elle come to terms with some of the decisions she’s made, each cutting closer and closer to the bone. Tomlin holds nothing back, giving voice to the character’s passion, anger and sadness throughout. There’s not a false note in her performance and it’s never more apparent than when she shares the screen with Sam Elliott, on hand as one of her past loves. The moments they share contain some of the best acting you’re likely to see on screen this year and remind us of how underused and overlooked the actor has been throughout his career.
The film’s final act, which features a reunion between Elle and her estranged, domineering daughter (Marcia Gay Harden), is indicative of the film as a whole. It refuses to compromise in regards to how it portrays its characters and doesn’t provide them with an easy solution where their complex problems are concerned. Refreshingly honest, this is the sort of filmmaking that’s far too rare today.
Contact Chuck Koplinski at [email protected].
