Two Raging Grannies (2013)

Two Raging Grannies is the kind of documentary that sneaks up on you: disarmingly funny, quietly radical, and powered by two nearly ninety-year-old friends who refuse to let “that’s just how the economy works” be the end of the conversation. Watching Shirley and Hinda roll across America on mobility scooters to question experts, students, and Wall Street insiders gives the film a scrappy road-movie pulse, but its real pleasure is their sharp chemistry—tender, bickering, brave, and vividly alive in the face of aging. Director Håvard Bustnes keeps it thoughtful without turning it into a lecture, letting big ideas about growth and consumption land through human moments, public pushback, and the sheer audacity of asking simple questions in rooms that don’t want to hear them. If you’re looking for a neat, policy-wonk solution, it may frustrate you, but if you want a warm, provocative jolt of perspective delivered with humor and heart, it’s a small film with an unusually large aftertaste.

Two Raging Grannies clearly wants to shake you awake about the cult of endless economic growth, using two nearly 90-year-old friends as charming, stubborn guides on a scooter-powered road trip. The upside is their chemistry and humor—there’s real warmth here, and the film’s curiosity feels sincere rather than preachy. The catch is that it can play more like an activist travelogue than a tightly argued economic deep-dive, with interviews and confrontations that sometimes repeat the point instead of building to a sharper conclusion. If you want rigorous, numbers-heavy analysis or a neatly wrapped “solution,” you may find it frustrating, but if you’re open to a personable, provocative conversation-starter, it’s an easy watch.