Nine to Five

Nine to Five (1980)

Starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman, Elizabeth Wilson, and Sterling Hayden

Directed by Colin Higgins

Written by Colin Higgins and Patricia Resnick

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Big Business

Big Business (1988)

Starring Bette Midler, Lily Tomlin, Fred Ward, Edward Herrmann, Michele Placido, and Daniel Gerroll

Directed by Jim Abrahams

Written by Dori Pierson and Marc Rubel

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C-

Movie Review - Grandma

Grandma (2015)

Starring Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Judy Greer, Nat Wolff, Laverne Cox, Sam Elliott, and Marcia Gay Harden

Directed by Paul Weitz

I watched Grandma on the first night of the 2016 Republican National Convention.  I say this only to prove that this conservative reviewer can push aside his political leanings when watching a film and judge it based on its cinematic merits and Grandma is a surprisingly funny and touching film about the title character Elle (Lily Tomlin), a bit of a hippie lesbian old lady,  who spends the day traveling around to a variety of friends and enemies attempting to pool up money for her granddaughter Sage (Julia Garner) to be able to get an abortion.  While I'm sure I'd be shunned for appreciating this film by many members of my political affiliation, its story is well told and comes across surprisingly natural.

Plot-wise, there's not much else to talk about as the short under-eighty minute runtime of Grandma keeps things moving.  On its surface, writer-director Paul Weitz's film is really just a series of vignettes with Elle and Sage meeting a variety of kooky (and not-so-kooky) people.  Digging a little deeper, the film allows the character of the somewhat curmudgeonly Elle to blossom a little with each successive introduction of people in her life.  As her layers are revealed to the audience and to her granddaughter, we get a surprisingly multi-dimensional character for such a lighthearted film.  Kudos to Weitz and Lily Tomlin for creating this depth-filled woman whom I may not necessarily agree with all the time but at least has a purpose for having her story be told.

While the film does suffer from what I like to call Finding Nemo Syndrome in that it always feels like we're just moving from place to place for quick little meet-cutes with a variety of characters, Grandma still proves to be much more successful than I ever could have expected.  While its somewhat nonchalant way of dealing with abortion won't suit everyone's tastes, part of the reason the film works and feels decidedly not preachy (despite one horribly blunt scene outside an abortion clinic that is unnecessarily bashing of pro-life supporters) is that it's not really about abortion.  It's about an older woman coming to grips with things that have haunted her past and because that's the focus, the film comes off well.  Well acted by all members in the cast -- with a particularly moving and somewhat heartbreaking small cameo from Sam Elliott -- Grandma succeeds with me when I didn't even think it had a chance.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Admission

Admission (2013)

Starring Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Gloria Reuben, Wallace Shawn, Nat Wolff,  Travaris Spears, and Lily Tomlin

Directed by Paul Weitz

Admission starts out promisingly enough, but after about forty minutes, I found it nearly inconceivable that there was still over an hour to go.  Tina Fey is charming as Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton who visits a small private high school run by John Pressman (Paul Rudd) only to discover that John's prize student Jeremiah (Nat Wolff) may be the son she gave up for adoption eighteen years prior.  With Jeremiah, whose transcript contains nothing spectacular, desperate to get into Princeton, Portia finds herself in a conundrum both professionally and personally.

And, unfortunately, the problem with Admission is that this aforementioned story is dished out in its first third and not much else happens for its remainder.  There's scene after scene of attempts at humor, but they fail to present a well-rounded story.  It certainly helps that Tina Fey and Paul Rudd are both pleasant to watch onscreen either together or separately and the rest of the cast is certainly appealing, but they're left floundering throughout the entire second half of the film.  It's a shame, really, because there's an attempt here to create a somewhat "smart" comedy, but the story simply isn't enough to sustain itself over its run time.

The RyMickey Rating:  C