Peace, Love & Misunderstanding

R

Released Jun 8, 2012

1 hr. 36 min.

Comedy

Drama

Romance

List

30%

70 Reviews

Tomatometer

43%

5,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

With her divorce looming, a lawyer (Catherine Keener) ventures to upstate New York with her children in tow to visit her hippie mother (Jane Fonda), whom she hasn't seen in 20 years.

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Critics Consensus

Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding produces many unintentional laughs with its absurdly contrived plot and cheery insistence that everything is just super.

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kevin c

I really like the cast of this movie. Catherine Keener, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Olsen and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Keener, on the heels of her husband asking for a divorce takes her two kids with her to stay at her estranged hippie mother, played by Fonda. The rest is your typical feel good dramedy. Predictable but the likeable cast do a fine job and make this an enjoyable watch.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The movie reminded me of a cartoon about a well-dressed Yuppie walking from his disappointed hippie parents' home. Indeed, that is actually the premise of the movie, about a woman lawyer finding her husband wanting to divorce her, so she takes her teenage children for the weekend to Woodstock, New York to see her mother, a hippie whom she hasn't seen in 20 years. The reunion is less awkward than expected, but there are still unresolved issues between mother and daughter, and the kids include a son who uses a video camera to fulfill his dream of being a movie maker a la Warner Herzog, as well as a stuck-up intellectual vegetarian daughter. Once you see the hippie culture still alive in Woodstock, the rest of the movie is basically a dysfunctional family story, how mother, grandmother, and the teenage kids still conflict, and how they all deal with the quirky locals of Woodstock, not all of whom are hippies. The movie philosophizes but has no deep meaning or surprises, but is still mildly entertaining.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/22/23

Full Review

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Bruce Beresford

Director

Jane Fonda

Grace

Catherine Keener

Diane

Elizabeth Olsen

Zoe

Nat Wolff

Jake

Chace Crawford

Cole

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Monica Castillo

Dig Boston

The lighting was so off in this movie that bright patches of sunlight made me squint and dark nighttime scenes lost some character's facial features.

Jun 18, 2012

Full Review

Rafer Guzman

Newsday

Beresford directs without purpose or polish, and his mostly fine cast, which includes Kyle MacLachlan and Rosanna Arquette in bit parts, is wasted.

Rated: 0.5/4

Jun 15, 2012

Full Review

Rex Reed

Observer

Pop songs, beautiful bucolic scenery and the joy of watching Jane Fonda fizz in a fun role that looks like a no-brainer are elements that a skilled director like Australia's polished Bruce Beresford blends with perfection.

Rated: 3/4

Jun 14, 2012

Full Review

Richard Propes

TheIndependentCritic.com

The film only partially lives up to its promise.

Rated: 2.5/4.0

Sep 19, 2020

Full Review

Kelly Jane Torrance

Washington Examiner

Keener is a great character actress, while Olsen is destined to become one.

Rated: 2.5/4

Jan 3, 2019

Full Review

Tara Thorne

The Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

This pleasant enough straight-to-DVD comedy stars Catherine Keener as an uptight lawyer who takes her kids (one is Elizabeth Olsen) to her Mom's for the summer.

Nov 16, 2018

Full Review

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Synopsis

With her divorce looming, a lawyer (Catherine Keener) ventures to upstate New York with her children in tow to visit her hippie mother (Jane Fonda), whom she hasn't seen in 20 years.

Director: Bruce Beresford
Executive Producer: Christina Mengert, Joseph Muszynski
Screenwriter: Christina Mengert, Joseph Muszynski
Distributor: IFC Films
Rating: R (Some Sexual References|Drug Content)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jun 8, 2012, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Dec 5, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $539.9K

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