This is Where I Leave You
Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 4:08 pm
Tripe. Absolute offensive tripe.
I'm a firm believer that a good rom/com can be made. I'll happily sit through Music & Lyrics over and over again. But this.....
It's got a great cast. Seriously, a really great cast. And they all put in good performances. But it plays like "A Very Special Episode of..." Not sure if that's an artifact of the source novel, but it's cloying.....Horribly.
The thumbnail plot.....Dad dies, mom has the 4 adult kids sit Shiva (they're not really Jewish) at the family home. The stereotypical kids are:
- Judd (Jason Bateman) is the neurotic protagonist who catches his wife boning his boss (on her birthday). So he's the lost 40-something who has no wife and no job.
- Wendy (Tina Fey) is the surrogate mother who's in a loveless marriage, has a promiscuous past, and drinks too much.
- Paul (Corey Stoll) is the older brother who's running the family business and is the straight-laced one. Oh, and he's trying to get his wife pregnant, and she used to date Judd.
- Phillip (Adam Driver) is the bad-boy youngest sibling who won't grow up.
Oh, and Jane Fonda's the mother who just got a boob job.
Add to this Rose Byrne as Judd's hometown girlfriend who never left home, Timothy Olyphant as Wendy's true love who was brain damaged in an accident, and the wonderful Kathryn Hahn as Paul's wife.
There are a couple of genuinely funny moments, but they're completely run over with the rote-ness of the story. It's practically a 90 minute sitcom. Of course we hear Paul and his wife have sex over the baby monitor. Of course Judd's cheating wife is pregnant with his baby. Of course Paul's wife wants Judd to give her a baby.
That's all well and good, but it gets downright insulting when it comes to Wendy and her brain damaged boyfriend who she slips off and mercy screws (husband and children be damned). And Phillip is banging his therapist, and other people, and she leaves him.....her Porsche. Oh, and dad smoked pot. And mom's a lesbian. And lots of people drive hybrids.....Except for the "bad" guys.
Horrible.
I'm a firm believer that a good rom/com can be made. I'll happily sit through Music & Lyrics over and over again. But this.....
It's got a great cast. Seriously, a really great cast. And they all put in good performances. But it plays like "A Very Special Episode of..." Not sure if that's an artifact of the source novel, but it's cloying.....Horribly.
The thumbnail plot.....Dad dies, mom has the 4 adult kids sit Shiva (they're not really Jewish) at the family home. The stereotypical kids are:
- Judd (Jason Bateman) is the neurotic protagonist who catches his wife boning his boss (on her birthday). So he's the lost 40-something who has no wife and no job.
- Wendy (Tina Fey) is the surrogate mother who's in a loveless marriage, has a promiscuous past, and drinks too much.
- Paul (Corey Stoll) is the older brother who's running the family business and is the straight-laced one. Oh, and he's trying to get his wife pregnant, and she used to date Judd.
- Phillip (Adam Driver) is the bad-boy youngest sibling who won't grow up.
Oh, and Jane Fonda's the mother who just got a boob job.
Add to this Rose Byrne as Judd's hometown girlfriend who never left home, Timothy Olyphant as Wendy's true love who was brain damaged in an accident, and the wonderful Kathryn Hahn as Paul's wife.
There are a couple of genuinely funny moments, but they're completely run over with the rote-ness of the story. It's practically a 90 minute sitcom. Of course we hear Paul and his wife have sex over the baby monitor. Of course Judd's cheating wife is pregnant with his baby. Of course Paul's wife wants Judd to give her a baby.
That's all well and good, but it gets downright insulting when it comes to Wendy and her brain damaged boyfriend who she slips off and mercy screws (husband and children be damned). And Phillip is banging his therapist, and other people, and she leaves him.....her Porsche. Oh, and dad smoked pot. And mom's a lesbian. And lots of people drive hybrids.....Except for the "bad" guys.
Horrible.