Few things are as important to comedy as the element of surprise, so the first really big laugh in Paul Weitz’s “Moving On” comes fairly early. Claire (Jane Fonda) is going out of town for the weekend, back to her old home for the funeral of a dear friend from college. She arrives at the service, strolls up to her friend’s late husband Howard (Malcolm McDowell), and tells him, quietly and evenly, “I’m gonna kill you. Now that she’s gone, now that it can’t hurt her… I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna do it this weekend.” And she walks into the church.
READ MORE: TIFF 2022: 16 Must-See Films To See At The Toronto Film Festival
Because Claire is soon joined on this little mission by a third college pal, Evelyn, and because Evelyn is played by Lily Tomlin (who memorably greets Claire by lowering her sunglasses and throwing her a knowing wink). We think we know what we’re in for; after all, Fonda and Tomlin were two-thirds of the above-the-title cast for “9 to 5,” much of which was about those women plotting to kill a man who wronged them. But “Moving On” is not “9 to 5,” which becomes clear when we discover the reason Claire wants to kill Howard: you see, 46 years earlier, while he was married to their friend, Howard raped her. That’s a pretty heavy inciting incident for an otherwise lightweight, sometimes downright mirthful little movie. So Weitz is threading a really delicate needle here, and he sometimes loses the thread.
He did something similar in his last collaboration with Tomlin, the 2015 comedy/drama “Grandma,” in which she starred as an aged hippie helping her granddaughter scrape together enough cash for an abortion. But it’s much easier to be light and abstract about abortion – or at least it was, back when it was still legal – than about a violent sexual assault, particularly when its victim describes it in graphic, brutal detail.
READ MORE: Fall 2022 Preview: 60+ Must-See Films To Watch
So that’s a tonal issue, and your mileage may vary on the degree to which it damages the otherwise frothy proceedings. But the reason to see “Moving On” is to see Fonda and Tomlin, a well-practiced two-act from not only “9 to 5” but their recent, long-running (especially for Netflix) sitcom “Grace and Frankie.” Their dynamic is well established by now: Tomlin is wryly cynical, Fonda sincere; Tomlin does the jokes, Fonda does the heavy dramatic lifting (though there is some overlap). It’s not difficult to buy them as old friends here, because we know they’re old friends off-screen.
The surprise is the lovely chemistry between Fonda and Richard Roundtree as her long-ago ex-husband, whom she bumps into, for the first time in years at the funeral. “It’s really nice to see you,” he says, and means it, and since they’re both single now (she’s divorced and he’s a widower) he invites her over for dinner. And when he asks, “May I kiss you,” it’s so sweet that you can’t help but grin. (And let’s not bury the lede here: this is a movie where Shaft and Bree Daniels make out.) What follows is a love scene between two older people that’s both charming and genuinely, honestly funny, and that’s a rare thing indeed.
“Moving On” is sweet and modest, and also messy and slight, a picture that mostly just wants to hang out with its stars for 85 minutes and treats elements like plotting and characterization primarily as inconveniences. The grace and charisma of its performers, and the considerable goodwill they bring to it, help Spackle over the considerable holes in the script and the gaps in its tone – but just barely. [B-]
Follow along with all our coverage of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.