I love Lily Tomlin. I thought she was very effective playing gay in Tea with Mussolini. Most of my friends with similar tastes thought this was hilarious so I looked forward to seeing it on DVD. I was disappointed.
Road movies are by their nature episodic. And the overall length of this film (about 80 minutes) is blessedly short. The first half hour is one-note, nasty and tedious and wastes Nat Wolff. John Cho is especially irksome. After that the visits and episodes get more interesting beginning with Sam Elliott as Tomlin's ex-husband. Marcia Gay Harden is terrific as the mother in the next sequence. Together, the two give the film its best scenes. The scenes following these two are fine and serve to wrap up the plot and land everything in perspective. Finally, Tomlin's curmudgeon does have a soft center deep inside after all.
So, after the first half hour, it's a bit more than watchable; F for the first 30 minutes, C+ for the next 50 minutes. C- (4/10) overall.
Road movies are by their nature episodic. And the overall length of this film (about 80 minutes) is blessedly short. The first half hour is one-note, nasty and tedious and wastes Nat Wolff. John Cho is especially irksome. After that the visits and episodes get more interesting beginning with Sam Elliott as Tomlin's ex-husband. Marcia Gay Harden is terrific as the mother in the next sequence. Together, the two give the film its best scenes. The scenes following these two are fine and serve to wrap up the plot and land everything in perspective. Finally, Tomlin's curmudgeon does have a soft center deep inside after all.
So, after the first half hour, it's a bit more than watchable; F for the first 30 minutes, C+ for the next 50 minutes. C- (4/10) overall.