Jane Fonda is Peace and Love

Yesterday it snowed and melted and snowed some more.  When I drove home from work the roads were icy, dry, and icy again.  Mostly the ice was at stop lights and around road curves of course, so the going was slow.  And it unnerved me just enough to decide venturing out again, even three or four blocks to go out for something to eat, just wasn’t worth it.  Never mind sliding into someones bumper from behind, I don’t want to slip and fall on my butt in a parking lot either.

So what to do with a quiet couple of after-work hours (before reading myself into oblivion) while W watches sports on tv?  By the way, I’m not totally out of the sports loop.  I’m cheering for the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.  And no, I haven’t watched a game yet, but when it’s closer to the end I’ll probably get sucked in like everybody else.  If there’s a contest for world’s worst sports fan, I’m a contender.  Meanwhile, time to check out new arrivals on Netflix.

And this is the delightful movie I decided to watch;  Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, starring –

Chace Crawford (Cole), Elizabeth Olsen (Zoe), Jane Fonda (Grace), Catherine Keener (Diane), Jeffery Dean Morgan (Jude), Marissa O’Donnell (Tara) and Nat Wolff (Jake).  Do I pay attention, or what??

The story is predictable (not just somewhat contrived) fun, with great casting.  I cannot imagine anyone but Jane Fonda as the beautiful Grace, stuck in the ’60’s forever.  Diane is an uptight New York City lawyer whose equally uptight lawyer husband tells her he wants a divorce.  She packs up her teenage kids and goes off to visit her estranged (for 20 years) hippie mother at her farmhouse in the countryside near Woodstock.  It turns into a summer adventure of romance (for all three of them).  They attend a war protest and a music festival, participate in some moon howling, learn a few family secrets, and make some very clichéd self discoveries.

Perfect.  I wanted some mindless diversion, and this delivered. I don’t care that the movie got less than rave reviews – every movie doesn’t have to be some powerful statement about some controversial event.  Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding is harmless fun with a delightfully happy ending.  Good for the hippie soul.