80 For Brady

Okay so I really thought that this movie had come out last year. That’s how long this year has been and quite frankly how long they were advertising it. We first started seeing trailers for 80 For Brady back in October of 2022 so when I saw that it's release date was 2023 I thought for sure that had to be wrong. So anyway we finally got around to watching it and this is my formal review for the based on a true story movie, 80 For Brady.

When we first saw the trailer for this movie (and then Book Club that came out very close after) my favorite thing was that these older women, who are icons by the way, were not only still making movies, but making movies that are fun. There is this reality in Hollywood that after you turn a certain age you are no longer meant to be in front of the camera or you are only meant for certain roles. Witches, grandmas, old divas…but here are Oscar award winning women that own their femininity and sexuality and lean into the comedy and I love it.

Let’s start with the fact that a cast made up of Lily Tomlin, Rita Moreno, Sally Fields, and Jane Fonda is AMAZING. Seriously, these women have incredible chemistry. It really helps that these ladies are definitely friends in real life and have been for decades.

I really love seeing these women be so close. Imagine having friends for 20+ years and still being close and active in your 80s. This is what women friendships look like. One of my biggest pet peeves in the media as a whole but especially film and television is that too often female relationships are written by men and they have absolutely 0 understanding of how friendships between women work. So a film like this that shows women not just getting along but truly loving each other and supporting each other is really amazing.

The trailer kind of made it seem like the central point of the movie was these women getting into the superbowl but the reality is that the movie focuses on these women having an adventure together. Seeing these women experience something new and kind of challenge the ideas of those around them was awesome.

Now this movie actually gets really emotional. I mean these women have been together for so long that they’ve supported each other through the deaths of their spouses, through divorce, through cancer. And when we find out that Lily Tomlin's character thinks her cancer might be back it's really sad because that's why she was the driving force behind this trip with her friends.

I LOVED 80 For Brady, obviously it's not exactly an Oscar award winning movie but it does have Oscar award winners in it and it is a fun watch. There needs to be more space in Hollywood for not only women led buddy films but also films led by older women. I think these women set a great precedent for those of us that don’t want an expiration date put on our careers. They have always been trail blazers but this is just one more thing they paved the way for. An absolutely amazing 10/10 watch it knew exactly what it was and it wasn’t trying to be anything else. It did a perfect job of being a buddy film, and a perfect job of being a comedy and the casting was incredible. It was a very sweet, heartfelt and genuinely funny film and though comedies are regularly seen as less than in the film industry and thus won’t get the recognition it deserves, it's a wonderful film.