Grandma can't hide the pain of poor choices

Like a botched plastic surgery, the sexual revolution reshaped motherhood as a medical condition that can be chemically scheduled and surgically terminated. Now, after a couple of generational spins of the revolution, grandmothers’ roles in society have radically changed as well. But Grandma, a new pro-abortion, pro-LGBT film showing in limited release, cannot hide the chaos that marks lifestyles out of step with God’s design.

Septuagenarian Elle (Lily Tomlin), once a marginally well-known poet-professor, still mourns the loss of her longtime lesbian partner. But for the past four months, Elle has been in a relationship with Olivia (Judy Greer), a beautiful woman half her age. As the film opens in the early morning, they are quarreling and break up.

Just after Olivia leaves the house, Elle’s 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage (Julia Garner), arrives. She tells her grandmother she’s 10 weeks pregnant and has already made a 5:45 p.m. appointment at an abortion center across town. But she doesn’t have the $630 to pay for the abortion. Neither does Elle.

Sage hasn’t told her businesswoman mother, Judy (Marcia Gay Harden), who conceived Sage through an anonymous sperm donation, about her pregnancy. Judy rarely makes time for Sage, and there’s no love lost between Judy and her mother, Elle, either.

With Sage in tow, Elle sets off around the city to hit up old friends for cash. Many of them are really former friends: Elle’s abrasive personality has her on the outs with just about everyone. She gets mixed results securing donations from a variety of people in her life, including Karl (Sam Elliott), to whom she was briefly married decades before.

For all the drama, the artsy Grandma (rated R for language and some drug use) is emotionally arid. It seems writer-director Paul Weitz, who made his directorial debut in 1999 with the raunchy American Pie, put his energy into setting up several not-entirely-inaccurate Christian and traditional-value straw men and knocking them down. But instead of getting defensive, Christian viewers should remember our Great Physician came for the sick, not the healthy.

Ironically, though, Weitz also writes Grandma’s three female lead characters unflatteringly. Was this intentional or inevitable? The friendless lesbian academic, the mothers who hate mothering, and the promiscuous granddaughter are all miserable souls.

But the most perfidious spectacle in Grandma takes place at the abortion center scene near the film’s conclusion. The abortionist is the most pleasant female character in the film, and Sage is in and out of the procedure in no time. False lesson #1: Abortion is easy.

After the procedure, daughter, mother (who shows up just in time), and grandma (who earlier revealed her own abortion) all make up in the waiting room. Then Elle seeks out Olivia and makes up with her as well. False lesson #2: Abortion brings people together.

Dusk settles on the city as the film ends. Elle walks down the street away from the camera with a bounce in her step and a tune on her lips. Job well done.

But truth be told, great-grandma is just whistling in the dark.