Jane Fonda has her juiciest part in years as an old hippie — a free-loving sculptor and the most popular pot dealer in Woodstock, NY — in “Peace, Love & Misunderstanding,’’ a crowd-pleasing comedy that isn’t going to win any awards for originality.
Cheerfully sending up her own image — at one point her character participates in an anti-war rally — Fonda gets far more laughs than Barbra Streisand did in her similar role in “Meet the Fockers’’ and its dreadful sequel.
Fonda’s character cheerfully introduces weed to her grandchildren (Elizabeth Olsen, who filmed this delayed-release comedy before “Martha Marcy May Marlene,’’ and Nat Wolff of TV’s “The Naked Brothers Band’’).
She also helps both of them lose their virginity — the vegetarian granddaughter to an “organic’’ butcher (Chace Crawford of “Gossip Girl”) and the grandson to a coffee-shop cutie (Marissa O’Donnell).
All of which horrifies their mom (Catherine Keener), an uptight lawyer (is there any other kind in the movies?) who has brought the kids to Woodstock to meet her long-estranged mother after the daughter’s marriage (to a briefly seen Kyle MacLachlan) implodes.
There are utterly predictable mother-daughter culture clashes in what, in some ways, amounts to an inversion of “On Golden Pond,’’ the film that Fonda made with her real-life dad, Henry Fonda.
In this one, Fonda’s character helps her daughter — initially still embarrassed by her former flower-child mom’s antics, including casual nudity — loosen up, fixing her up with a local carpenter-singer (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), much to the kids’ astonishment.
There isn’t anything we haven’t seen before in the script by first-timers Christina Mengert and Joseph Muszynski, including the documentary the son is making with his camcorder, and some pot-scented female bonding with the likes of Rosanna Arquette.
But it works anyway because of the excellent cast, guided by the veteran director Bruce Beresford (“Driving Miss Daisy’’) on picturesque locations in the actual Woodstock and vicinity photographed by Andre Fleuren.
“Peace, Love & Misunderstanding’’ demonstrates that sexy septuagenarian Fonda is a force to be reckoned with, even if she’s scoring easy laughs by dropping the names of celebrities her character bedded during the Woodstock music festival.
I can hardly wait to see what the erstwhile Hanoi Jane is going to do with her upcoming performance as Nancy Reagan.