Grandma (Cinema Screening)

(spoiler free)

So after the release of ‘Sisters’ last weekend it seems that Decembers collection of films isn’t finished looking at the female members of the family. ‘Grandma’ has been promoted as a comedy-drama, it served as the closing film for the Sundance Film Festival 2015 and it received critical acclaim. I hadn’t seen a single trailer so I didn’t really have any expectations.

The lead role went to Lily Tomlin and this is her first leading role in 27 years! This isn’t evident though as Tomlin is very comfortable in this role and she performs very well throughout. The supporting cast, mostly female lead, are good in their respective roles too. However, I found it quite hard to like any of the characters. I don’t know what it was really but it took me far too long to even warm a little to them. Their problems are thrust upon us without any previous character development meaning that at first you really don’t care about any of them. This does change as the film goes on but as the film isn’t even 80 minutes long I felt it was too little too late. Whilst we are talking about the running time I have to inform you that despite the minuscule length of the film it easily becomes boring. Not even the quick rotation of  supporting characters can keep the audience entertained. However, I have to say that there have been plenty of other films this year which have bored me bore but ‘Grandma’ wasn’t miles away from them!

I didn’t hate this movie I just found it to be rather dull, a problem that a lot of films that garner critical acclaim suffer from. The promotion of this film claiming that it’s a comedy is so misplaced as this is firmly a drama. I only laughed once during the film and it was at a throwaway comment. Sure Tomlin’s character isn’t your usual Granny but she never really musters up much comedy, this is a fault of the writing and not the performance though. The themes that the film deals with are done well to a certain extent and many people will certainly praise the film for this. It was just a shame that the themes played with here just weren’t to my own personal tastes. However it’s clear that this film does have an audience, what can I say it just wasn’t for me.

I’m a bit baffled by the critical acclaim that ‘Grandma’ has received, sure I can see why some may like it but I don’t think it’s anything that interesting or entertaining. To me it was unfunny, boring and it lacked engagement. It does have good performances and many will enjoy the themes used here. ‘Grandma’ will be one of the last films I see in 2015 but one of the first that I forget.

Rating – 5/10