About a girl
GRANDMA Director Paul Weitz on Lily Tomlin’s captivating comeback.
Revving the engine of a 1955 Dodge Royal Lancer, speaking her mind, swearing like a sailor, it’s no surprise the lead role in comedy drama Grandma was written for Lily Tomlin. “It was an idea I’d had floating around in my head for a while, but it didn’t click until I got to work with Lily on a movie called Admission,” says writer-director Paul Weitz ( About A Boy). “Hanging out with her I realised how edgy her thinking was and how smart she was. I wanted to see a movie with that personality deployed.”
It’s been a while coming. More precisely, 27 years have passed since Tomlin played the lead in a movie, trading put-downs with Bette Midler in 1988 comedy Big Business. It’s been even longer – 40 years – since she received an Oscar nomination (for Robert Altman’s Nashville) and a decade since she had a blazing row with director David O. Russell on the set of I Heart Huckabees – a row that ended up on YouTube and became a thing of movie legend.
Though she’s worked non-stop since (guest starring on Desperate Housewives and Damages among others), Grandma could see the 76-year-old bothering the Academy all over again – and finally going home with the gold. She plays crotchety poet Elle, whose grief over the death of her long-term partner Violet leads to the demise of her latest relationship (with Judy Greer). Then Elle’s granddaughter ( Julia Garner) turns up asking for $600 for an abortion, prompting a fund-raising road trip.
Shot over just 19 days on a budget of less than $1m, Grandma is clearly personal for Tomlin, who married life partner Jane Wagner in 2013. She dressed in her own clothes for the role and that Dodge Royal is hers, too. “There are splinters emerging from her,” Weitz says of Elle, whose trip sees her reconnecting with old friends ( Orange Is The New Black’s Laverne Cox) and lovers (the fantastic Sam Elliot). Meanwhile, Weitz adds that Tomlin was instrumental in “deepening” the character during redrafts. “She was a bit concerned about the swearing,” he smiles, “so I tried to position it that the character could be believably literate and also swear, similarly to Lily in real life!”
With Oscar buzz starting when the film screened to overwhelmingly positive reviews at Sundance in January, Grandma finds Tomlin back at the top of her game in a time when films about characters in their twilight years are proving more popular than ever ( Mr Holmes, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel). “From the moment that this break-up happens, she’s getting sucked down into her past,” Weitz says of Tomlin’s character. Not so Tomlin, who, between Grandma and hit Netflix show Grace & Frankie, is back with a vengeance. JW
ETA | 11 December Grandma opens next month.
‘Lily’s character swears a lot – just like Lily in real life!’