Jimpa is one of those difficult movies to review and here’s why.
Set in current-day Amsterdam we meet Jimpa (John Lithgow) an opinionated academic living his best gay life. It’s a world away from his earlier existence as a husband and father to two daughters.
That conventional life was short lived when with the shadow of AIDS approaching, he came out to his wife. Although they carried on for a while, he eventually took off overseas when the girls were little. It was decided that his wife would stay put and look after the girls, or so the story went.
Years on his now adult daughter Hannah (Olivia Colman) is a wife, mother and acclaimed filmmaker. As she works on her passion project, the story of her childhood, she is called to Amsterdam where she must decide if or when to tell her estranged father about the movie project.
Hannah decides to take her nonbinary teenage daughter Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde) with her to Amsterdam catch up with her much-loved grandpa Jim, or Jimpa as he named himself, his ego balking at the idea of being a grandfather.
On the way there Frances declares she wants to quit school and live with Jimpa for a while.
What follows is an adventure of awakening for Frances as Jimpa introduces her to life in gay Amsterdam. Along the way he is not backward in imposing his views, calling her “grandthing” as not so subtle nod at her nonbinary status.
Jim’s opinionated nature is matched by Hannah’s indifference, unable to take a stance even when it means not standing up for her own daughter.
As the audience wandered out I pondered:
- The movie provides an interesting reminder about the AIDS period and how far LGBTQIA+ life has come;
- Lithgow is great as the self-centered grandpa;
- Colman equally good as the frustrating daughter;
- However, it is these very roles that make it hard to warm to the movie. When one main character is largely unlikable and the other bland, it leaves the audience with no one to fight for. While the performances were good and the story interesting, the audience is left, like the main character, indifferent.
For more information and session times go to Luna Cinema
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