On Thursday night at a desert resort east of Los Angeles, the Palm Springs International Film Awards packed a cavernous convention center with an all-star lineup of honorees: Viola Davis, Cate Blanchett, Michelle Yeoh, Steven Spielberg… .
And 24 hours later, the Palm Springs International Film Festival officially opened with another lineup of stars: Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, and Sally Field.
The venue was different (Palm Springs Convention Center on Thursday, Palm Springs High School on Friday) and so was the level of formality and glitz (high glitter on Thursday, not so much on Friday). But the biggest difference was that the 10 honorees on Thursday represented 10 different films, including “The Woman King,” “Tar,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Fabelmans,” while Friday’s event was the world premiere. of a single film, “80 for Brady,” starring that formidable quartet of legendary women.
The “Brady” of the title is another legend, quarterback Tom Brady, who acts and produces on “80 for Brady” but couldn’t make the trip to Palm Springs because he has a football game to play. in Atlanta on Sunday.
But hey, who needs Brady when you’ve got Tomlin, Fonda, Moreno and Field? Not PSIFF, for which “80 for Brady” turned out to be an ideal opening night film for the first in-person festival since January 2020. Light, fun, and perfectly suited to the demographic in a city that has always been so much of a retreat of show business and a popular retreat, the film from director Kyle Marvin is a “based on a true story” account of three 80-year-old women and a 70-year-old who travel to Houston to see their idol Brady play in 2017 Super Bowl LI
Exactly how true this is to the story it’s based on is a matter of speculation, though it’s safe to say that the actual women probably didn’t have as many misadventures along the way. But in a way, the escalating improbabilities help the film mimic Brady’s actual journey in that particular Super Bowl, in which his New England Patriots fell behind 28-3 and then staged the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history. to win in overtime.
“80 for Brady” also starts off slow, despite the stellar cast, but picks up steam with the help of Billy Porter as Gugu, Lady Gaga’s choreographer, Guy Fieri as himself, and a series of ridiculous scenes that allow four talented actresses to comedians have fun
The Palm Springs audience clearly wanted a laugh at the beginning of the film and had no choice at the end. TheWrap will post a full review closer to the Paramount film’s February 3rd release, but as someone who has never rooted for Brady at any football game, I found myself rooting for him in the film.
Then again, the people to root for in “80 for Brady” are clearly the 80s, not Brady. That became apparent in a post-screening Q&A with Tomlin, Fonda, Moreno, Field, Marvin and actor Harry Hamlin, who plays a former football player who falls for Fonda’s Trish.
The session began with moderator Dave Karger asking Tomlin about his series of jobs with Fonda. There was the Netflix series “Grace and Frankie” from 2015 to 2022, followed by a couple of movies. First up was Paul Weitz’s “Moving On,” which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year and is also playing in Palm Springs, followed by “80 for Brady.”
“After seven years of ‘Grace and Frankie,’ we are very concerned about being seen together,” Tomlin said. “But then we try to get past that and get another job.”
The question and answer session quickly turned into the four women alternately complimenting and joking with each other, with Field talking about how she looked in the mirror as they rehearsed a dance scene and thinking to herself, “I’m dancing with rita moreno!”
Moreno then jumped to his feet to imitate Field’s enthusiastic dance steps. “I saw her dance,” he said, “and I thought, ‘She’s going to steal this damn movie!'”
Brady and some of his former teammates also performed well in the film, including a particularly funny locker room encounter between Trish de Fonda and the impressive physical specimen of former Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, about whom Trish had written fiction. erotica. “Jane, what would you say Gronkowski was like?” Karger asked. “Was he a natural actor?”
Fonda shrugged. “Who cares?”
The movie, by the way, ended with a new song by 13-time Oscar nominee and recent Honorary Oscar winner Diane Warren, which means it’s probably a sneak peek of at least one entry on next year’s Oscar song list. . The song, “Gonna Be You,” is sung by a quintet of formidable women: Dolly Parton, Belinda Carlisle, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, and Debbie Harry. “Diane came flying in, like she does, and she helped get all these women,” Marvin explained.
