Please don't spend money on this.

Masterful Cinema

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This was a sad use of good acting. Although Lily Tomlin delivers brilliant acting with excellent character development, there's nothing else to this film. It's rather boring, over all with not much to the story line, there's minimal plot, at best. What's really disappointing is that IMDb listed this ad a comedy first. I'm not sure why it's listed as a comedy at all, it's in no way humorous.

Where was the Oscar nomination for Lily Tomlin as best actress here. Wow, was she ever passed up for this.This no-nonsense academic grandmother who is way ahead of her time gave Tomlin the opportunity to present one of her best performances ever. Ascerbic, to the point, but the hip lesbian grandmother pulled no punches here.The film is devoted to Tomlin trying to pay for an abortion for her granddaughter. It depicts their various adventures in this pursuit and culminates in one scene where Tomlin beats up the father of the child.Grieving the loss of her partner Violet and ending of a relationship with a much younger girl will only complicate matters but Tomlin's character has the mettle to carry on.

GRANDMA is that strange type of film that is at one humorous, sensitive, philosophical, and speeds through a fast paced day in the life of the differences and similarities between the aged and the young. Written and directed by Paul Weitz (About a Boy, Being Flynn, In Good Company, Mozart in the Jungle) and employing a cast of immense talent, this film addresses many issues before the public today – same sex partnerships/marriages, abortions, mother/daughter relationships, aging, and more. It is both entertaining and it works very well as a comedy drama – much like life.Sage (Julia Garner) is a teenager who discovers she is pregnant and the boyfriend responsible shuns her and doesn't want to help her. Sage has a tense relationship with the mother Judy (Marcia Gay Harden) and cannot turn to her for financial assistance to pay for a scheduled abortion so instead she seeks out her lesbian maternal grandma Elle (Lily Tomlin) who is in the throes of breaking up with a young girl Olivia (Judy Greer) after recovering from the death of her 38 year relationship with her beloved Violet who had been as much a grandma to Sage as Elle has been. Elle relationship with Judy has been strained for years and Elle decides Judy would be the last source of borrowing for this particular project. Together Elle and Sage set out to find the money to pay for the evening's scheduled procedure and in the process they encounter old acquaintances (Elizabeth Peña, Sam Elliott and eventually crusty mother Judy) and the procedure is accomplished – and Elle has traversed memories of a life she does not regret. So many fine moments of solid dialogue are interspersed with this 'road trip' that make this film a very sensitive examination of mother/daughter/grandmother relationships. Tomlin, Harden, Elliott, Greer and Garner are all in top form. The ending, quiet and solitary, speaks fathoms about human sensitivity.

Hard to finish the movie when you hate the main character. Don't get me wrong. I think Lily Tomlin is a great actress and would like to see her in much more movies but awful sentences can make even excellent actor sound unnatural and amateurish. Add to those awful sentences bunch of overused indie movie clichés (like transsexual hairdresser, cool lesbian grandmother etc.) and fair dose of unmotivated screaming (guess for creating comical moments when there is none) you get recipe for disaster. I behaved like a hipster few years ago and had way to much compassion for all sort of indie or European hyped movies and tried to "understand" them or blame myself for not liking them (I thought I missed some greatness or am not educated enough) but no more. I don't like this movie. Sorry