Gire: Tomlin dominates smart, tart 'Grandma'
When an actor's character and performance dominate an entire motion picture as Lily Tomlin's Elle does in Paul Weitz's comic family drama "Grandma," the supporting players usually scramble for leftover crumbs.
Not here.
In writing the economic and remarkably empathetic screenplay for "Grandma," Weitz gives characters surrounding Elle's force of nature the time and opportunity to breathe, think, feel and live.
Just when we assume "Grandma" will be a single study of the titular character, Weitz pulls a fast one: His film expands to study three generations in Elle's family and provide a bluntly honest examination of the complex and often conflicting ties that bind them.
And Elle may not even be the toughest bird in this family flock.
Still, "Grandma" centers mostly around her, the curmudgeonly, aging lesbian poet who's been hanging around the planet long enough to lose interest in social niceties, sugarcoating her thoughts and giving two hoots about what anybody thinks of her.
She still grieves for the loss of Violet, her partner of 38 years. She has a newer, younger lover in Olivia (Judy Greer), but for unknown reasons, Elle unceremoniously dumps her one day, telling her that their four-month relationship doesn't even qualify as a chapter in her life.
"You're a footnote!" Elle spits with unvarnished words.
The plot kicks in when Elle's adorable granddaughter Sage (a luminous, unaffected performance from Julia Garner) becomes pregnant and needs $630 for an abortion.
Elle tries to teach the high school senior something about taking charge of her life. She offers her a book. Has Sage ever heard of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique"?
"A character in X-Men?" Sage responds.
Having no cash at her disposal, Elle - who has cut up her credit cards and made an arty wind chime with them - embarks on a quest with Sage to find somebody who can cover the medical costs.
First, they prevail upon Sage's "kind of" boyfriend Cam (Nat Wolff). He's insolent and abusive enough for Elle to pick up a hockey stick and use Cam's body parts as a puck.
It isn't until Elle goes begging to her ex-husband Karl (Sam Elliott) that "Grandma" hits its golden moment. Karl, now with four ex-wives and a herd of grandkids, seems nice and helpful at first.
Then, painful memories of a past relationship intervene. When Karl discovers why Sage needs the money, he is stunned.
In a brief, career-best performance, Elliott imbues Karl with so much pain and anguish that the movie stops dead in its narrative tracks.
If Elliott's powder keg scene threatens Tomlin's dominance here, so does Marcia Gay Harden's Judy, a treadmill-jogging, phone-calling, orders-barking tyrant at the law office she runs.
Judy is Elle's daughter and Sage's mom, and in every blunt comment and critical barb, Judy communicates the combative, emotionally twisted relationship she shares with her mother.
Weitz, whose coming-of-age comedy hit "American Pie" announced him as a storytelling force before he codirected the dramatically moving "About a Boy," displays a deft hand in mixing humor with pathos in "Grandma," a smart work where the jokes depend on truths, not punchlines, to work.
As a performer well-versed in truth-based comedy, Tomlin slips into Elle's conflicted, misanthropic poet's skin with effortless grace, creating one of the year's fiercest, most unforgettable female performances.
“Grandma”
★ ★ ★ ½
Starring: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Sam Elliott
Directed by: Paul Weitz
Other: A Sony Pictures classics release. At the Century Centre and River East 21 in Chicago, and the Evanston Century 18. Rated R for drug use, language. 82 minutes