Grandma was shot quickly, in less than three weeks, with Tomlin wearing next to no makeup and driving her actual auto, a ’55 sedan.
Advertisement
By the time granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) shows up looking for $600 to pay for an abortion, it’s clear that Elle is not your grandma’s… well, you get it. You might think it sounds like any number of mediocre road comedies out there, full of trite generational gags and sporting a sappy, all-is-forgiven ending. But when teen granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner, appealingly natural) comes knocking, Elle’s ready to help.
I specify “first” because Tomlin is back in the mix this year for her raw, funny, furious portrayal of the title character in Paul Weitz’s “Grandma“.
Although the film has a stellar cast, Tomlin said it was the script that convinced her to take the role. Elle herself is fairly broke, scraping by on a college writer-in-residence gig.
The scene with Karl is so cathartic, and Tomlin and Elliott’s chemistry is so intense, that subsequent events the movie has been building toward-our eventual introduction to Sage’s mother, Judy (Marcia Gay Harden, wonderful as an impatient, overcaffeinated superlawyer), and the appointment at the abortion clinic-seem slightly anticlimactic.
Elle is angry – as we see in an unnervingly amusing mini-breakdown she has in a coffee shop – but not at Sage.
For most of the movie, Elle acts like the aggrieved party, mumbling complaints about the friends and family members who disappeared when Vi got sick, but in her interactions with Karl, she’s the one who must make amends.
Grandma, also starring Laverne Cox, is out Friday. “Just being with Lily, just watching her, even now, is extraordinary”. The scene is not to be missed. Writer-director Paul Weitz (American Pie, About a Boy) plays to her strengths. “You were a footnote”, Elle tells her lover, with resigned honesty more than spite.
Advertisement
Having just paid all her debts – and having made a wind chime out of her cut-up credit cards – Elle doesn’t have the cash on her, and both she and Sage know that while Judy’s good for the money, a scolding from her sharp tongue is best avoided at all costs.
