LAFF Review: Paul Weitz's 'Grandma' Provides The Perfect Dose Of Lily Tomlin

In introducing his latest film at the opening night of the Los Angeles Film Festival, writer/director Paul Weitz mentioned that his inspiration for making “Grandma” was in to spend some “quality time” with star Lily Tomlin. So he wrote a script with her in every scene. The resulting film is just that: some truly entertaining quality time in the company of this legend. If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to have Lily Tomlin as your straight-shooting grandmother, “Grandma” is the fix you need for the lack of that in your real life.  Tomlin is Elle, a poet, and in the opening scene, we get to know her brutally honest personality as she dumps her much younger girlfriend Olivia (Judy Greer), in the harshest of ways. Elle’s a softie though, she just doesn’t really show it to anyone else. It’s a difficult scene to introduce our lead, but we know what we’re going to get with her. Throughout the course of the film, we get know Elle as she really is: a salty, rabble-rousing free...