disgusting, overrated, pointless

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It is June and all the TV series are into reruns so my wife and I searched Netflix streaming for something to entertain us. We found this movie and we were entertained, me more than my wife I believe.It starts in New York City and Catherine Keener is Diane Hudson, mother of two and a type A attorney. The two kids are about to go off to college and her husband tells her, right before their house party, he wants a divorce.Diane deals with this by taking a road trip to see her mother, apparently estranged for 20 years. Along go the kids, Nat Wolff as Jake Hudson and Elizabeth Olsen as Zoe Hudson.Grandma lives where else but Woodstock. She is played well by Jane Fonda as Grace who in her real life was somewhat of a flower child and war protester. In her 70s she still lives about the same life she did back in the 1960s and even grows pretty good pot for the locals.Everyone from out of town meets a love interest in Woodstock, there are protests in the streets and a festival. Even Idol contestant Katherine McPhee makes a singing appearance. The whole movie is quite quirky and entertaining if you like that sort of thing.The whole theme is "love", the need for people to quit carrying emotional anchors around and instead just "release" old grudges and enjoy life.

Towards the end, Jane Fonda reads excerpts of poetry that tied the film together and left me inspired to watch the ending over and over again.Song of Myself, Walt Whitman (from Leaves of Grass, first published in the 1855 edition)And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own; And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers; And that a kelson of the creation is love; [5]It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mothers'laps, And here you are the mothers' laps. [6]It is not chaos or death—it is form, union, plan—it is eternal life—it is HAPPINESS. [50]

I have never been one for the hippie lifestyle, and yet "Peace, Love and Misunderstanding" tries to convince its audience that free loving, loose morals and zero financial security can be better for the soul and family relations than a job, responsibility and a house in the city. Diane (Catherine Keener), single after being divorced from her husband, moves her two teenagers to Woodstock, just for the weekend, to live with her hippie mother Grace (Jane Fonda).She thinks the country will be good for them but is wary of her mother's unorthodox ways. So was I. The film really isn't trying to preach, which is good, but it is trying to be yet another dysfunctional family dramedy, which is not good. The weekend turns into a week and then a summer, because, surprise, Diane finds solace and romance in the Woodstock music and the quirkiness of a small town.The hippie characters were much more real than just stereotypical caricatures probably because actual townsfolk were a majority of the bit-players. There was way more care put into the writing of the supporting characters than you would usually find in a similar Hollywood production. The "hippie-ness" of it all was less extreme, definitely toned down, but it still doesn't mean that they can be emotive and deserving of our sympathies and empathies, let alone be the subject of a dysfunctional family dramedy (not that anybody should be).The supporting characters that I did like were Diane's two teenage kids, Jake (Nat Wolff) and Zoe (Elizabeth Olsen). Jake is a geeky, aspiring filmmaker, insecure and inexperienced around girls. His small coming-of- age steps seemed natural and very endearing. Zoe is a more self-assured, independent 16 year-old, but seems to be following in her grandmother's footsteps, more than her mother's, and one starts questioning how well she knows herself. She also has great chemistry with her love interest, Cole (Chace Crawford). Starting to become the norm, Olsen was the best of the cast. The cast also includes Jane Fonda and the usually underrated Catherine Keener, but their selfish, grating characters with Fonda's inconsistency and Keener's blandness is what costs "Peace, Love and Misunderstanding" a shot of at least being passable entertainment. It could have gotten another star or two if the kids were the leads.

This film redefines ho-hum. It seems to be the sort of script that a person who thinks they want to be a writer would come up with. The characters are achingly two dimensional and when they're not that, they are so stereotypical it borderlines awful. Even the cast (which is exceptional) seems to be bored with the characters they play. I don't mind when a film is formulaic in the genre but sometimes you have to find your footing to make yourself at least a little bit unique and this doesn't even try. The worst part perhaps is that the great climatic moment when everything is made clear and the family realizes their differences and their strengths makes no sense. The kid's film that brings them altogether is not even remotely good and will leave you scratching your head. The chemistry between all the major players is lack luster at best and even that is being generous. Is it a terrible movie? Well, its not the worst I've seen but that is probably only because of the solid cast doing what they can with an awful script.Jane Fonda made a resurgence in the early 2000's with films I actually loved like Monster-in-Law and Georgia Rules. First of all Fonda looks fantastic and she could probably really do a lot with a character like this. A hippie woman still living life to the fullest but has alienated her daughter because of her free spirited ways. Instead the character is boring and so typical. What a shame. I'm not a huge fan of Catherine Keener, I always find her a little dry but she's like a desert in this film. She has the emotional range of a tree trunk. I'm not sure she even shows any emotion and she delivers her lines in a monotone. The idea that her and Fonda are mother and daughter comes across as a joke and you won't believe it for a minute. Elizabeth Olsen who stunned audiences in Martha Marcy Mae Marlene and has done well in other films like Silent House, should watch her roles more closely. She is actually the one character I almost liked but realistically the script and the bad direction drags her down to. She also has the most chemistry with Chace Crawford but even that is just a little bit. Nat Wolff as the son who should be a major player but a complete disappointment. He seems like he's supposed to be college age but he behaves like an angsty coming of age twelve year old. Jeffrey Dean Morgan who I love is reduced to a supporting supporting love interest who hardly has any screen time except for one actually enjoyable and cute scene when him and Keener sing together.I can literally hardly believe this was directed by Australian director Bruce Beresford who has years and years of experience and has done some great films. I don't know how this one was such a miss. Then again on the surface it looks like all the pieces are in place and then the film barely sputters along until it finally ends. It is of no surprise to me that co-writers Joseph Muszynski and Christina Mengert have virtually no credits to their names. It never surprises me when I see a film like this. I often wonder how big names get forced into projects like this because then I think everyone gives about 20% and it shows in the final project. There isn't any reason to see this unless you're truly a die hard Fonda fan. It is truly the definition of sub-par ho-hum entertainment. 5/10