Grandma shouldn't really work. The plot is standard Sundance fare: a young girl (Julia Garner) needs an abortion, so instead of talking to her strict mother (Marcia Gay Harden) she seeks out her hippy lesbian grandma (Lily Tomlin), someone who's fierce and feminist and talented, but whose instincts, shaped by a lifetime of hurt, are to lash out at those close to her. They go on the road in search of money for an abortion, and in the process young learns about old, old learns about young, yada yada, you know the score. During its running time it goes through a veritable checklist of exhausted indie tropes: shots of light filtering through trees, a strummy guitar soundtrack, an overdone plot thread about a dead loved one and, to top it all off, some of the most pretentious chapter title cards I've ever encountered. Seriously, they're just nonsensical words like "dragonfly", "the ogre", "coffee", "toilet", "irritable bowel syndrome", that serve no narrative purpose whatsoever.
It could have all been terminally annoying. But it's not - the film just about works - and I think the chief reason why is, well, its star, Lily Tomlin. She's been working in the industry for over 40 years but that hasn't dimmed her senses at all: she's as sharp as a button, steely, unsentimental, and with a knack for turning the most banal dialogue into something entirely natural, imbued with wit, warmth, and genius comedic timing. It's a pleasure to watch her work, and it's great that a film has been constructed to have her in the starring role - something she hasn't been able to enjoy in a long time.
In fact, Grandma's chief pleasures come from watching its actors work to elevate the material they've been giving. It's a cornucopia of character actors given free-reign: Sam Elliott, typically cast in roles that exploit his sexy, sexy voice, impresses the most as an injured old flame, but Marcia Gay Harden convinces as a frustrating work-addict mother, and it's nice to see Judy Greer break out of the rut of empty maternal roles she's been stuck with for the past year. There's also something to be said for the healthy way it depicts sexuality and femininity - it's all treated as perfectly natural, and not in a preachy, Roland Emmerich kind of way, which seems to indicate that film might finally be catching up to its television counterparts. (Laverne Cox, primarily known for her role as Sophia on Orange is the New Black, also pops up here as a tattoo artist.)
Grandma ultimately emerges as a rather sweet (if slight) picture, one that, at moments, threatens to plunge into sentimentality, but never does, and that lambastes the lazy process by which Hollywood has frequently marginalised its actors into tired, clichéd roles. Instead, it tries to find their humanity - and this alone, I think, is enough to redeem its flaws.
★★★
