‘Moving On’ assessment: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and homicide?

If “lovely” will not be the primary phrase you’d assume could be used to explain a film about tried homicide, then you definately haven’t seen “Moving On,” an amusing and bittersweet little story of affection, friendship and, sure, retribution.

Jane Fonda, in one among her greatest, most resonant movie performances since she returned to the display in 2005, stars as Claire, a twice-divorced grandmother and canine lover who travels from Ohio to L.A. for the funeral of her previous faculty roommate, Joyce. (The movie was shot largely in Pasadena, Altadena and Burbank.) But Claire has an agenda past simply honoring the reminiscence of her departed pal: Now that Joyce is gone, Claire needs to kill Joyce’s husband, Howard (Malcolm McDowell), for vengeful causes that can unfold as we go.

But her mission is, admittedly, moderately harebrained — in distinction to the seemingly circumspect Claire’s basic demeanor. All she is aware of is that she needs to bump off the hostile, remorse-free Howard. How and when she’ll accomplish that can, she hopes, current itself.

To that finish, Claire enlists one other faculty buddy, Evelyn (Fonda’s “Grace and Frankie,” “80 for Brady” and “9 to 5” co-star, Lily Tomlin), who makes a brash entrance at Joyce’s funeral — and is much more unfiltered at her memorial gathering. Though Evelyn, a former orchestra cellist and Joyce’s college-era lover, hasn’t seen Claire in endlessly, she’s resourceful, artful and possibly simply bored sufficient along with her present life to leap into Claire’s scheme. And the misadventures comply with.

At occasions, the extra audacious Evelyn proves an sudden voice of cause. But that doesn’t cease her from accompanying Claire to take a look at a pleasant gun store or bartering with a fellow resident in her senior-living facility for the pistol he supposedly has stashed away (a transaction that gives a pleasant, twisty payoff).

Howard’s potential killing stands out as the springboard right here, however this compact story is about a lot greater than that. Writer-director Paul Weitz, a pressure behind such different fantastic character dramedies as “About a Boy,” “In Good Company,” “Admission” and the 2015 Tomlin-starrer, “Grandma,” fleshes out his well-observed script with a wistful array of grace notes for each Claire and Evelyn that play out in unfussy and heartfelt methods.

Whether it’s Claire’s tender reunion along with her mild and equitable ex-husband, Ralph (a beautiful Richard Roundtree), Evelyn’s protecting kindness for a tween boy (Marcel Nahapetian) exploring gender expression or Evelyn’s surprise at studying from Joyce and Howard’s devoted daughter (Sarah Burns) that Joyce had saved Evelyn’s age-old love letters, the movie fantastically touches on growing old, individuality, remorse and the bracing freedom of not giving a fig.

Fonda and Tomlin, who’ve develop into a sort of latter-day feminine model of Matthau and Lemmon, not solely enjoyably show their lived-in chemistry however deliver knowledgeable nuance and pathos to their characters’ many emotional turns — huge and small. If that’s no nice shock, given the size, breadth and caliber of their careers, it’s nonetheless stirring and spectacular to behold.

The homicide thread picks up once more in earnest within the movie’s third act and manages to resolve itself in a sequence of unusual and satisfying if maybe barely handy strikes. But by then we’re so invested in Claire and her deep-rooted trigger that, no matter occurs, we simply wish to see her glad. Evelyn too.

In the tip, “Moving On” emerges as a feel-good film by means of some feel-bad occasions, primarily that heinous slice of historical past between Claire and Howard. It’s a little bit of a tightrope act for positive, however the movie engagingly exhibits that, no matter one’s age, if you could find a strategy to reconcile the previous, the long run might show brighter than you ever imagined.