Peace, Love & Misunderstanding - C

Rated R, 96 minutes

Fonda's fun in "Peace," but rest of it rings false

The only reason to give the mediocre, labored new dramedy "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding" a chance is to see screen legend Jane Fonda as a scene-stealing hippie. Though Fonda wasn't a hippie in real life, the 74-year old Oscar-winner revels in donning a long gray wig and plenty of flowery clothes, yet too bad this movie isn't as memorable. Directed by "Driving Miss Daisy's" Bruce Beresford, the film centers on Diane (Catherine Keener), an uptight New York City lawyer whose life unravels when her husband (Kyle Maclachan) asks for a divorce. She takes her teen son (newcomer Nat Wolff, charming) and her college student daughter (the ubiquitous Elizabeth Olsen) to visit their estranged hippie grandmother (Fonda) still living in Woodstock who hasn't quite grown up. Considering the talent involved, the formulaic  "Peace, Love, & Misunderstanding" is a disappointment: a choppy, predictable and forced film that's intent on quickly pairing everyone off romantically in the first act. The film's central premise is the biggest contrivance: why would an uptight lawyer going through a divorce take her kids to see her mother with whom she hasn't spoken to in 20 years? Though most of this rings false, the film does have its charming moments as Keener and Fonda are a serviceable mother-daughter screen pairing, and Fonda in particular seems to have fun parading around in the flowery dresses, smoking pot and spouting irrelevant '60s wisdom; though the wig and excessive tie-dye make for hippie overload, she hasn't enjoyed herself on screen this much in years. Outside of Fonda, Nickelodeon star Wolff is also charming as a boy who equally enjoys both girls and making movies, while Olsen and (the usually bland) Chace Crawford's romance is mostly annoying. Given how much fun Fonda has, I wish "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding" was a better movie, but it's a remarkably weak and forgettable effort.