Moving On 2023

Claire, Jane Fonda travels across the country to attend the funeral of her old college friend Joyce. Before the service, she bluntly informs Malcolm McDowell that she intends to kill him this weekend. The admission sets a tense, uneasy mood for the days to come, threading through loyalties, old wounds, and the unsettled business of decades past.

Directly after the service, Claire reconnects with Evelyn, Lily Tomlin who had Joyce as a college roommate and lover. It is revealed that Howard had wronged Claire decades earlier, though the exact nature of the wrong remains unspecified. She remains steadfast in her resolve to see him pay, now that their shared friend is no longer present to mediate or witness what has long festered beneath the surface. The plan to confront Howard intensifies the emotional stakes, pushing both women into decisions they will grapple with long after the wake.

Evelyn initially refuses to help Claire with the plan to kill Howard at the wake. Instead, she heads to her assisted-living facility, creating a divide between their aims and forcing Claire to move forward with the danger on her own—at least for a moment. The tension of the day broadens as the two women navigate fear, memory, and the precarious line between vengeance and justice.

At the wake, Claire reencounters her ex-husband Ralph, Richard Roundtree whom she has not seen in years. Evelyn arrives and outs Joyce by revealing their two-and-a-half-year relationship in NYC, between their junior year and beyond, a confession that unsettles the room and nudges Claire toward leaving the event with Evelyn. The walk away from old rules and public judgment marks a turning point in how both women view their past—and their future.

That evening, Ralph invites Claire home for dinner, where she meets his daughter and two grandsons. Over drinks, he asks why she left him, and she cannot articulate the reason, leaving a silence that feels heavier than the meal. They share a quiet, intimate night together, only for Claire to slip out early in the morning at Evelyn’s request, leaving behind freshly cooked bacon as a small, practical token of a complicated night. The bacon becomes a strange symbol of comfort, complicity, and the odd rituals that bind people in moments of fear and temptation.

As Evelyn’s position shifts, she convinces another resident to loan them a gun by bribing him with the bacon. The weapon turns out to be a flare gun, which she insists will be lethal at close range, a detail that thickens the plot’s already dangerous arc and underscores how improvisation and desperation drive their actions.

Under the guise of meeting to apologize in a park, Claire confronts Howard about the assault, with the flare gun—the only firearm they could obtain—aimed at him. She demands that he acknowledge the past, while the tense exchange makes clear the deep-seated pain that has guided her choices for decades. He collapses in what Claire believes to be a heart attack, and she uses the flare to signal that he needs medical help, a moment that exposes the ambiguity and consequences of their improvised plan.

In the hospital, it becomes clear that Howard’s collapse was not a fatal attack but a non-life-threatening anxiety episode. Claire goes into his room and describes the assault in detail, but he continues to deny it. In a moment of blistering resolve, she attempts to smother him with a pillow, but Evelyn stops her, marking a pivotal turn in their alliance and in the moral weight of their actions.

The final confrontation unfolds in the hospital parking garage, where Howard vents a stream of expletives at the women before he stumbles into the path of another driver and dies. The accident-like death reframes the entire sequence of events, leaving the truth of the past interwoven with chance, fate, and the unpredictable outcomes of pursuit and retaliation.

After Howard’s funeral, Claire reconnects with Ralph, now seemingly open to continuing their relationship, suggesting a potential reconciliation and a fragile sense of hope. The film leaves viewers with lingering questions about forgiveness, the long shadows of previous traumas, and how late-life decisions can redefine one’s sense of self, loyalty, and the possibility of renewed companionship.