One of the first movies I remember watch was 9 to 5 released in 1980 featuring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. I remember mostly the scene where Tomlin’s character thinks she has poisoned her boss played by Dabney Coleman and tries to sneak what she thinks is his body out of a hospital. The absurdity of it with Tomlin’s performance as she pretends to be a doctor telling a candy stripe nurse to “piss off” mixed with Fonda portraying the middle-class American housewife archetype made for some good comedy.
I didn’t hear about Fonda and all that “Hanoi Jane” mess untl many years later, when Fonda was supposedly retired from acting in the 1990s. Both Tomlin and Fonda during this time seemed to be forgotten relics from a bygone era as a new batch of actresses had taken over Hollywood. Tomlin was also in All of Me, which I watched a lot as a child. So, they were kinda like my “Cinema Fun Aunts.” And as time has shown, it’s hard to keep good women hidden.
Within the last decade, they have emerged during their truly Golden Years with the hit Netflix show Grace and Frankie and the recent movie 80 for Brady, which I haven’t seen because I’m not a Tom Brady nor New England Patriots fan. But it was mainly their criticism of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party that brought them a new batch of fans and haters. Tomlin’s being gay has always been something that people knew but didn’t want to admit as she had been with her partner Jane Wagner for decades.
So a movie like Moving On functions more as another project for the two to do while they can. And Fonda at 85 and Tomlin at 84 look like they don’t have any indication of slowing down. The premise involves Claire (Fonda) and Evelyn (Tomlin) re-connecting after years of being out of touch at the funeral of one of their friends, Joyce. Claire tells the widowed husband, Howard (Malcolm McDowell), that now his wife is gone, she’s going to kill him for a sexual assault that happened many years before. The trauma of it affected the marriage to her first husband, Ralph (Richard Roundtree in a nice suave role).
But Evelyn also has some tea to spill. Not only was she Joyce’s roommate at one time, but they were also lovers, which Howard and his family refuse to believe. Unfortunately, Claire can’t purchase a gun because she lives out of state. Evelyn offers to help because there is a guy at her assisted living center with hilarious results. At the same time, Claire reconnects with Ralph as they’re both widowed and rekindle the flame they had.
It’s a short little movie where most of the jokes land well because of the performances. But there’s nice melodrama as it tackles serious subjects as sexual assault and Howard’s refusal to believe his late wife was bisexual. Despite Claire’s insistence Howard sexually assaulted her, he still thinks it was mutual and consensual. More or less, he behaves like it was something she wanted. McDowell is a perfect character to play a sleazy man who uses the fact he’s recently widowed to get special treatment.
But the movie is also about letting go of some of the pain and trauma that seems to linger. Evelyn used to be a concert cellist but can’t do it anymore because of her health and arthritis. While she doesn’t live in the past, she seems angry she isn’t able to play anymore but must come to grips with it like a lot of people who realize that those days are gone. The title is how the women must deal with the loss of a friend even though they know one day they will be in the casket.
Fonda and Tomlin work perfect together. It’s nowhere near what they brought to 9 to 5 but it’s a nice wayu to help bookend their pairings if they never work together again. Like I said earlier, both actresses bring this sensation to the movie like the wonderful aunt at a family dinner who bakes the perfect dessert you like that your parents don’t want you to have. While most of the Hanoi Jane stuff has been disproven, it’s a reminder of how wonderful an actress Fonda can be when you look past her personal stuff. She won two Oscars within a decade for a reason. Even more, Tomlin manages to show given the right material, she can do drama just as good as comedy.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 