It’s not unusual for international television shows to explore age as one of their fundamental themes. We see shows about middle-aged men and women going through crisis and being forced to act on it — the first examples that come to mind are Breaking Bad and Desperate Housewives — as do we see twenty-somethings contemplating ways to lead their lives and sort out their relationships with shows like New Girl, How I Met Your Mother, Friends, Master of None, and One Tree Hill. From my experience of watching television, I can say the sixty-five-plus age group gets little to no attention on the screen. It’s usually a theme that’s relegated to a single episode, which involves a mildly senile or dead grandparent, or a crusty evil villain who is trying to make a comeback.
To translate the pains of growing old on screen without giving the viewer a mild case of depression about the future is a challenge, which Grace and Frankie has conquered admirably. Grace and Frankie is a Netflix show that brings together a veteran cast comprising Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston. Jane Fonda plays Grace, a vain retired cosmetic company CEO, and Lily Tomlin plays Frankie, a free-spirited artist whose personality was given birth to in the Sixties. They’re polar opposites who tolerate each other only for the sake of their husbands (Martin Sheen as Robert and Sam Waterston as Sol), who have been business partners and best friends for forty years. It is at one such ‘dinner’ when the four of them are together that the husbands break the news to their wives that they’re leaving them, for… each other.
Grace and Frankie are forced to not only confront this bizarre twist in their lives, but also each other. The acting is marvellous. Grace and Frankie (for which Lily Tomlin has been nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy) share a special on-screen chemistry as they bond, albeit grudgingly, over the sadness and fury of how their husbands get to live happily ever after, while they have to fend for themselves in their seventies. How Grace and Frankie take on the big bad world of senior dating, and make peace with their past (which includes adult children in various stages of complicated relationships), forms the crux of the first season.
Although listed as a ‘comedy’, Grace and Frankie’ s humour is far from the crude slapstick that it could have been, and is also more sparse than you’d expect. There are many poignant scenes through the course of the twelve episodes which make the first season, but that isn’t to say that there aren’t any laughs. In the very first episode, Sol tells a furious Frankie that his life with Robert would be the “next chapter of his life”. Frankie retorts, “I’ve got news for you — the next chapter isn’t that long.” The humour of Grace and Frankie isn’t one that will make you guffaw, but it will make you smile throughout.
( Grace and Frankie is available on Netflix.)
