Peace, love and great interior decorating ideas

This little family dramedy boasts such a sexy cast, including Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, someone who I unquestionably thought was Javier Bardem but turns out to be called Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Elizabeth Olsen and the incredibly symmetrical guy from Gossip Girl. It also seemed to have a kind of hippie/ uptight buddy comedy situation, set during one unforgettable summer. It's a formula that's always appealing to me.

The thing that stuck with me after watching was that I have really mellowed out since moving from London to the Pacific Northwest last year. I recently bought a crystal deodorant (it does nothing and now smells a bit like BO). I know what Kombucha is and have a

rough idea of how it's made. I have taken to hanging out at the local nudist beach (in my clothes though, prude for life). I recently bought a van which has zebra striped flames painted on it, and I am converting it into my summertime home away from home. Home is a beautiful communal house complete with 1 green house, 11 roommates, and around 30 bikes. The cynical Brit in me still sneers when people bring up crystals, but not nearly enough.

My recent hippyification became clear after I spent most of this movie cooing over Jane Fonda and her stylish abode. Jane is Grace, an estranged Grandma still living the hippy dream in Woodstock. I aspire to be more like Grace. She is cool, creative, beautiful, stylish and kind. She holds full moon ceremonies as an excuse to get drunk with her girlfriends. Her house is fucking awesome. She has painted cute little scenes on the kitchen cabinets. She has a rad art shed, where she paints nudes of her biker friends. She has a flowery beetle and a painted VW bus. It’s too much. It’s like all my Pinterest boards brought to life.

The fact that Jane Fonda is so rad and her house is the place I most want to be makes the big fault of the movie all the more irritating. The conflict is all hugely out of proportion. When the reason for Grace and her daughter Diane’s estrangement is revealed I was left thinking that surely they could have found something darker in the free love movement to draw from. This is not an excuse to not call your mother.

Diane, Catherine Kenner’s character, is a total bummer in this movie. She’s uptight and right-wing in an old-fashioned, Reagan loving way. She hasn’t seen her mom for 20 years, and her kids have apparently never met her, despite living nearish in New York City. There is a big betrayal hinted at, and I wonder what it could be. Must be awful, like raising her in a sex cult or something. Eventually (spoiler) it’s revealed that Grace sold pot at her wedding, so Diane got her arrested and didn’t speak to her for nearly a quarter century. WTF. People like pot, Diane. Especially when they’re at a wedding as stressy as yours probably was.

The next betrayal is that the extremely handsome carpenter (of course he’s a carpenter) that Grace sets Diane up with is actually one of her ex lovers. Once Diane finds out she flips out and leaves them all immediately. Am I just overly West Coasty right now or is this a major over reaction? It’s not like they were shagging at the time. And her mom is Jane Fonda, legitimately the sexiest old hippy ever. Who wouldn't want to tap that?

The two grandkiddies also get paired of conveniently during their summer of love at Woodstock. Elizabeth Olsen plays a high-minded vegan who gives an unbelievably handsome organic butcher a super hard time for his job. This is the only issue in their whole relationship, and it nearly breaks them up. First world fucking problems

The shy son documents their summer through his video camera. Why is it every young son in indie movies is making a documentary about everyone all the fucking time. The radical feminist in me wonders if it is a conspiracy from male filmmakers to imply that the auteurs eye is instinctively male, appearing in sensitive types as teens who creep out everyone around them out by incessantly filming them. Luckily he finds some romance and comes out of his shell. A little nookie solves everything.

I enjoyed this film, but mainly because I found a future role model in Grace, and got me some great interior decoration ideas. Really, this is a perfect example of a film that wastes it amazing cast by forgetting to give them any drama or comedy or really any story to play around with.

First published on strongfemalelead.wordpress.com