I'm not a fan of this character and I have gone on record in the past that Tate is a brilliant actor who is horribly squandered on her own writing.
It is this low expectation that probably helped make this a lot more watchable than I was expecting.
A cursory amount of research tells me that this movie had troubled production but the final product holds its own as an on brand examination of a character we have previously only glimpsed and exploring her background and her life before she became a "nan".
The humor is as broad as Tate always is but there is a poignant story here that illustrates how the most cantankerous older people you meet are grouchy because they have lived a long life of injustice and missed opportunities.
Seeing young Nan was pretty fascinating and the black soldier she loved was perhaps the most charismatic character of the movie. It's excellent that Gavin was willing to reprise the role though the road-trip-equals-emotional-healing plot during the present day is (though basically justified in itself) does meander a lot and at one point has that ghastly trope of someone turning on the radio and the news item that just happens to be relevant to the plot comes up. It is the weakest point of the story and I can believe it was an afterthought.
They clearly didn't have the budget they needed and they cheat their way through the set pieces with perhaps the ugliest kind of animation.
Still, I find the final section pretty moving and they hold off from the catch phrases with amazing restraint.
It is this low expectation that probably helped make this a lot more watchable than I was expecting.
A cursory amount of research tells me that this movie had troubled production but the final product holds its own as an on brand examination of a character we have previously only glimpsed and exploring her background and her life before she became a "nan".
The humor is as broad as Tate always is but there is a poignant story here that illustrates how the most cantankerous older people you meet are grouchy because they have lived a long life of injustice and missed opportunities.
Seeing young Nan was pretty fascinating and the black soldier she loved was perhaps the most charismatic character of the movie. It's excellent that Gavin was willing to reprise the role though the road-trip-equals-emotional-healing plot during the present day is (though basically justified in itself) does meander a lot and at one point has that ghastly trope of someone turning on the radio and the news item that just happens to be relevant to the plot comes up. It is the weakest point of the story and I can believe it was an afterthought.
They clearly didn't have the budget they needed and they cheat their way through the set pieces with perhaps the ugliest kind of animation.
Still, I find the final section pretty moving and they hold off from the catch phrases with amazing restraint.