Moving On

This movie is almost exclusively about old people and old relationships. Jane Fonda is the main star, she will be 86 before the end of this year, 2023. An old friend dies, Fonda's character has an old, 50-something year, grudge against the surviving husband, played by Malcolm Mcdowell. We have no idea what it is all about but we know she intends to kill him that weekend. And she tells him that. (All revealed in the trailer, no spoilers.) So that is what this movie is about. Confronting and trying to settle old issues. Near the end of the movie all is explained, we understand why she feels so strongly, we sympathize with her feelings, yet we also know that murder is not the soultion to settling an old animosity. Fonda plays the older woman on edge, a hair-trigger edge. Tomlin plays her character the opposite, live and let live, let old bygones be bygones. Mcdowell plays the old man very well. In total there isn't much to this movie once it is all done and all is revealed. Yes, we can have great sympathy for Fonda's character but it makes you wonder "Why did she wait so long?" In general, while neither of them are my favorites, I enjoy the acting of Fonda and Tomlin, I have seen them in so many roles, like Fonda in 'Barbarella' in 1968, that it is almost like I know them. I am glad I took the time to watch the movie, my wife chose to skip after she watched the trailer.

It went deep - deeper than we expected. Bit slow. However, I love those two women together. We love Grace & Frankie so we HAD to watch this. The bigger subject here is so important and I love that it was talked bout here. Especially how hard it still hits her and how deep it still goes. The captions weren't right in a few spots. Most notably when they're in the hospital and the daughter asks Evelyn not to bring up her mother's letters with the father. Evelyn said, "Nothing Sapphic?" And the captions said "nothing zappy?" There's a huge huge difference which tells me the one writing the caption probably doesn't know that word even exists, what it means, or how it applies to the subject they're speaking of. Ha.

I love these two as a combo. They're both great actresses. I've appreciated their talents for many years but I'm so damn sick of the politics in every movie. We need to allow kids to be kids. Stop incorporating beliefs to push babies to be other than what they're. I just want to enjoy a movie without the politics! I still would have appreciated this movie even if it wasn't one of their best had it not been for pushing the sexualization of confused children. Lily and Jane are like appreciating a hot cup of cocoa. Sometimes it hits you perfectly. Sometimes it may not be perfect but it still brings you comfort. But for crying out loud. Leave the pushing of politics out of movies. Especially with children.

source: Moving On

There's some strong sections in this film, just so people know what to expect. Its misleading to call this a straight comedy because it's not. Definitely not for young kids. If you're looking for fairly recent Fonda, I'd go with "our souls at night" or the new baseball fan film she did, now that's a comedy. It feels like an indie film not big budget and Fonda looks incredible for 84/85. Roundtree still looks great & still has the charisma even about 50 years after doing shaft. Not much else to say, funny, heartwarming and sad in places, wouldn't watch again though, but too edgy for my pallet.

Hollywood excels at putting beautiful young people on our screens, even if it means matching a young woman with a very older man as a love interest. It's long annoyed me but Hollywood don't listen to reviews. This film is a delightful tale of 4 older people who all share a common history, and 2 of the surviving ones want to correct some of that history. The lengths they go to is absurd but very funny. I always think of Lily Tomlin as a female Woody Allen and she never changes, she is always good. Jane Fonda remains beautiful and just as engaging on screen as she ever was. Malcom McDowell despite his age now still exudes the violent and threatening demeanour he displayed all those years ago in Clockwork Orange. Not the best film of the year but a thoroughly enjoyable one, and a brilliant reminded that ageing actors can still give great performances.

I gave this movie two stars solely because, no matter what you think of her, Jane Fonda at 80+ is till a really good actress. And she's still kinda hot. But that can't save the horrible and sad performance of Lily Tomlin, who is roughly the same age, but really needs to retire. She delivers her lines in slow motion because if she speaks any quicker she slurs them as if she's been drinking. I doubt drink has anythng to do with it. It's old age and clogged ateries. Depressing. Further, there is actually a random scene inserted early on where she grooms an utterage boi to become a trenkid. Who thought that was appropriate? Let's move on...the movie is really slow. It goes out of the way to tick as many boxes as possible and that makes it a Debbie Downer. This could actually have been a funny dark movie, but it turns out it's just more crap from Hollywood.

We spectators as voyeurs watch just another day in the life of these elder people trying to come together with their long suffering traumas caused by their upbringing and the right and wrongs that did in their life. Its something that one can reciprocate in most cultures of the world and most of us at some stage will identify with the different personalities presented in the film. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin carry out their roles convincingly while Malcom Mcdowell role is not a demanding one and very easily can be carried by many actors of his age. Overall if you just like to devote 85 minutes of your time in watching what is happening on an average funeral get together all over the wold please do.

In town for a funeral of her recently deceased friend, Claire (Jane Fonda) confides in her long time friend Evelyn (Lily Tomlin) that she sets out to kill the widower husband for a past wrongdoing. I'm all for this resurgence of movies lead by women over the age of 65 (that aren't Meryl Streep), but so few of them have been good, to me at least. And Moving On may be the worst of them because this "comedy" is awful. From the moment Claire tells Howard she's going to kill him I'm wondering what sort of wacky issue brought about this desire and the movie certainly lets you wonder for a while. Did he not invite her to the wedding? Did he accidentally kill her cat in some ridiculous fashion? No, He raped her. Yes, the plot of this quirky comedy is set in motion by a sexual assault. Granted, you don't really know how true the accusations are until the final 3rd of the movie which is becoming a frustrating trend seen in the likes of Invisible Man, The Secrets We Keep, The Watcher, etc. But at least those movies treated it seriously. And if you think this movie is going to cleverly balance the emotions of that dark topic with some wit like done in Death of Stalin (2017) or Bernie (2011) then you'll be disappointed. It feels like there's so little conviction in the characters, despite what has happened and what they are planning on doing. I may not like Promising Young Woman but at least it committed to its subject matter. The darker subject matter here feels wildly out of place in a movie that is otherwise trying to be funny. Key word: trying. Because good gosh this film was so devoid of laughs. I think I chuckled once and I can't even remember what for. The movies attempt at laughs are just so limp that most jokes don't even make it off the ground adding to an overall lifeless feel to the movie. Then there's how thinly plotted it is. This movie is a bare 85 minutes and I think only 30 of them are actually about the main plot. Instead we get Claire reconnecting with her old husband and meeting his family. We have have Evelyn making friends with another retiree's grandchild who might be trans. Even that's not much but the movie just stretches each one of these things out SO MUCH. Last week I said 65 felt like the longest movie of 3 at just 1hr 36m. But THIS felt longer and much more unpleasant. This movie wastes the talents of its cast to the point that I am more than happy to be moving on from it.

When Claire said to Howard "Im going to kill you, I'm going to do it this weekend" I was immediately invested. She said the words no differently than one would say "pass the jelly please". We often see victims of sexual abuse in their youth, but to see this elderly woman crying and pounding her fists into her bed over a rape that occurred 4 decades ago was painful. My heart ached for Claire and the many women like her. Knowing how she lost her true love and ended up with crappy grandkids, I mean! I just felt so bad because I adored my grandmother. I was grateful that Evelyn and Ralph came into her life. I was especially grateful for Howard's rant. He was so full of venom that he didn't pay attention to his surroundings. Bravo Howard! I'm soooo happy you got all of that off your chest. Bye 😊