Peace Love & Misunderstanding [Import]

Peace, Love & Misunderstanding is a showcase of top-flight acting talent, especially Jane Fonda, who looks like she's having a ball playing Grace, an aging flower child who sees no reason to drop back in to society. Catherine Keener plays Grace's conservative, divorced daughter--and it's actually quite remarkable how alike the actors look and comport themselves. Keener's Diane is watching her perfectly constructed life come undone by an unexpected divorce, so she takes her family up to Woodstock, New York, to visit dear old flaky Mom, whom she hasn't seen in years. It's safe to say that every generation learns, if reluctantly, from the other, and despite the script's many clichés, the fine acting does give Peace, Love & Misunderstanding its moments. Other standouts in the cast include rising star Elizabeth Olsen, as Diane's earnest vegan daughter, Zoe, and Chace Crawford (Gossip Girl), as a hunky young local butcher trying to win Zoe's heart. Grace, meanwhile, dominates the action, with her aging-hippie hobbies and pearls of wisdom, and the soundtrack obliges with requisite tunes from the '60s and '70s. One may remember a similar Jane Fonda film, with its own twist of nostalgia for an earlier time, Coming Home, which used the music of the '60s much more evocatively--or maybe it just was lucky to be able to use it first. But if the messages in Peace, Love & Misunderstanding feel featherweight--like Family Ties flashed-forward a few decades--director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy) still lets his talented actors, especially Fonda, Keener, and Olsen, shine. And that definitely feels groovy. --A.T. Hurley