"Welcome Home. Get Uncomfortable" for
This is Where I Leave You. This comedy-drama film directed by Shawn Levy, adapted by Jonathan Tropper, and based on his book of the same time. When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humour, heartache and redemption that only families can provide-driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.
By mid May 2013, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant, Dax Shepard, Abigail Spencer, and Ben Schwartz were cast. At the same time, with a budget of $19.8 million, principal photography commenced, and took place throughout New York. In early October 2013, Michael Giacchino was hired to score the film.
The film stars Bateman, Fey, Fonda, Driver, Byrne, Stoll, Hahn, Britton, Olyphant, Shepard, Spencer, and Schwartz. The film is about grown-up siblings who are so selfish they ensure that the other are as unhappy as the audience. Despite the talented cast, the characters (including Bateman's hopeless Judd and Driver's immature Philip) were many shades of dreadful. Good comedy is derived from the characters, but this film doesn't establish its characters well enough to be effective on that level.
This Is Where I Leave You is yet another fast-food film, going through the motions of a plot with milk-and-cupcake dialogue that leaves you dry and crusty. A rarely funny comedy that's unlikely to keep even the lowest common denominator amused. Levy directs what amounts to an almost plotless - and entirely pointless - slice of controlled chaos as if it were an expensive pilot for a TV soap opera. It's not that the film is awful. Worse than that, it's just plain dull. I wish it has been more sweet, syrupy and corny. Openly unpleasant to sit through. Despite one too many of the gags and plot points being old and unfunny, it's good-natured and nicely suited for family viewing. Although flawed and far-flung from the novel, the film is still a sweetly saccharine alternative to some of the "heavier" films out there this holiday season, that does have some very funny family moments. What a surprise: beyond the gloss of this formulaic Hollywood comedy about the importance of family, lies a heart-felt and hilarious treasure chest filled with home truths. It's a good film if you think your family needs to be brought together. This isn't a film made for reviewers, it's made for mature kids, and for them it's just barely successful. Who should see this film? Anyone that is looking for a family film.
Simon says This Is Where I Leave You receives:
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