Movie Review: MOVING ON

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: March 17th, 2023 / 02:56 AM

MOVING ON movie poster | ©2023 Roadside Attractions

Rating: R
Stars: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Malcolm McDowell, Sarah Burns, Richard Roundtree, Catherine Dent, Marcel Nahapetian
Writer: Paul Weitz
Director: Paul Weitz
Distributor: Roadside Attractions
Release Date: March 17, 2023

Clearly, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin enjoy acting together. Almost the moment they wrapped their Netflix comedy series GRACE AND FRANKIE after five seasons, they star in two movies together, last month’s 80 FOR BRADY, and now MOVING ON.

MOVING ON is a few shades darker than Fonda and Tomlin’s other collaborations. In other hands, the material might be stark drama, but writer/director Paul Weitz puts a gentle, bemused spin on the proceedings that finds humor. It helps greatly that he and his leads love the characters.

Fonda plays Claire, who has an adult daughter, Molly (Catherine Dent), grandkids, and a Corgi. She’s also had two marriages that both ended in divorce, plus an ongoing fear of flying.

But Claire gets herself on a plane, flying from Ohio to Los Angeles, for the funeral of her old, close friend Joyce. Claire, Joyce, and Evelyn (Lily Tomlin) were all besties in college. Evelyn long ago also moved to L.A.

Claire still loves Joyce, but that’s not the only reason she’s attending the service. Joyce’s widower, Howard (Malcolm McDowell), has done Claire a shocking wrong (see previous comment about how this easily might have been a drama) forty-six years ago.

We learn that Evelyn is the only one who Claire has told about the incident. Claire has kept silent all this time – she has told herself that it was out of concern for Joyce, but there is plainly more to it – but now that Joyce is gone, she wants a reckoning with Howard.

Evelyn is torn between wanting to help her old pal and wanting to save Claire from herself. The fact that Howard is so obliviously infuriating at every turn makes us sympathize with Claire even more than we already do once we comprehend what’s happened.

What’s most surprising about MOVING ON is how much suspense Weitz is able to generate with his low-key, generally droll tone. Claire’s goals and her diffidence about them prevent us from being able to predict where all of this will lead.

Fonda plays Claire as the epitome of well-to-do, super-polite vulnerability and rage, which is all the more explosive because she’s been so unable to express it. Tomlin’s pragmatic Evelyn provides perfect balance. The rapport between the two is unimpeachable.

As for McDowell, he puts an idiosyncratic spin on his self-satisfied, aggrieved, non-introspective older man. Strong supporting turns are contributed by Dent, Sarah Burns, Richard Roundtree, and Marcel Nahapetian (as a child befriended by Evelyn).

MOVING ON is economical in its length, running just an hour and twenty-four minutes. However, it packs a lot into that space. At the end, given its topic, its treatment, and its effect, it seems rather remarkable.

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