SPOILERS WITHIN:
For some reason I thought this movie would be similar to The Royal Tenenbaums - a story about a lovable, charming, quirky, odd family coming into contact with an uptight professional wardrobe queen. Excellent set up, right?
But the movie starts going downhill from the very first minute, never gets better, and left me wondering why all these otherwise decent actors chose to associate themselves with such an awful, awful script.
Nothing that happens in this movie makes any sense. Now, for something to "make sense" in a movie, it doesn't have to be "realistic." You can believe a winged dragon is going to jump in and save the day at the very end as long as - and this is key here - that point is set up earlier in the script. By establishing characters' motivations and history, the audience will slowly clue into the crux moments of the script where those characters have to make decisions - based on their past experiences - that influence the outcome of the film.
There wasn't one character in this movie that had any background information established before they started making "key" decisions. Things happened, and the audience watches, uninterested, because from the very beginning of the film we aren't given any reason to care.
The Stone family hates Durmot Mulroney's fiancée, played by SJP. The audience has no idea why, because the film never sets up any organic reason for it. The characters merely EXPLAIN reasons they don't like her, which does not a movie make.
Halfway through the film we're clued into the fact that mom has cancer. If this was supposed to be a pinnacle moment, it merely further confuses the plot, as the audience is left wondering why, if someone in the family were about to die, everyone would be so trifling and petty.
Enter Claire Danes. Again, for no reason. From the moment she clumsily falls off the bus line that drags her into the Stones' life, acting as the complete opposite of her uptight sister, we see the plot "thickening" so obviously that I was tempted to fast forward through the obligatory sentimental conversations that had to follow, wherein Durmot Mulroney sees Danes' sensitive side ("I'm an art grant writer... and this totem pole touched me so deeply.")
It's almost an afterthought that he falls in love with Danes, Luke Wilson marries SJP, and the next Christmas everyone lives happily ever after except mom whose dead (but who really cares anyway).
What made this movie especially bad was the "Home Alone"-esquire music that forced joviality at moments when the Stone family was trifling, a horrible section of Christmas-gone- horribly-awry pratfalls (wherein the entire family gets covered in eggs and turkey in the kitchen, ha ha ha).
However, the hands-down worst part of this film were the shallow characters. Diane Keaton's mother was defined by coffee: she had a favorite mug and she hated it when people took the last coffee and didn't make more. Rachel McAdams (as the sister) was supposed to be a liberal college-type, but was nothing except a basketful of laundry and an NPR logo gives this away. (Otherwise she's just a petty brat.) Luke Wilson's character is utterly confusing - at first he's rather creepy (forcing his affections on SJP), then he's a pot- head with a Love and Rockets poster in his room, then he's a doting husband.
And worst of all is Durmot Mulroney, whose character development (or lack thereof) the movie centers on. What we finally begin to understand, only through horrible dialog, is that The Family Stone doesn't want Durmot Mulroney to marry SJP because he isn't being "true to himself." If this would have been at all clear in any kind of set-up to the movie, perhaps, perhaps The Family Stone could have had a bit of redemption. As it is, it did not, and therefore this movie is one of the absolute worst films of all time.
For some reason I thought this movie would be similar to The Royal Tenenbaums - a story about a lovable, charming, quirky, odd family coming into contact with an uptight professional wardrobe queen. Excellent set up, right?
But the movie starts going downhill from the very first minute, never gets better, and left me wondering why all these otherwise decent actors chose to associate themselves with such an awful, awful script.
Nothing that happens in this movie makes any sense. Now, for something to "make sense" in a movie, it doesn't have to be "realistic." You can believe a winged dragon is going to jump in and save the day at the very end as long as - and this is key here - that point is set up earlier in the script. By establishing characters' motivations and history, the audience will slowly clue into the crux moments of the script where those characters have to make decisions - based on their past experiences - that influence the outcome of the film.
There wasn't one character in this movie that had any background information established before they started making "key" decisions. Things happened, and the audience watches, uninterested, because from the very beginning of the film we aren't given any reason to care.
The Stone family hates Durmot Mulroney's fiancée, played by SJP. The audience has no idea why, because the film never sets up any organic reason for it. The characters merely EXPLAIN reasons they don't like her, which does not a movie make.
Halfway through the film we're clued into the fact that mom has cancer. If this was supposed to be a pinnacle moment, it merely further confuses the plot, as the audience is left wondering why, if someone in the family were about to die, everyone would be so trifling and petty.
Enter Claire Danes. Again, for no reason. From the moment she clumsily falls off the bus line that drags her into the Stones' life, acting as the complete opposite of her uptight sister, we see the plot "thickening" so obviously that I was tempted to fast forward through the obligatory sentimental conversations that had to follow, wherein Durmot Mulroney sees Danes' sensitive side ("I'm an art grant writer... and this totem pole touched me so deeply.")
It's almost an afterthought that he falls in love with Danes, Luke Wilson marries SJP, and the next Christmas everyone lives happily ever after except mom whose dead (but who really cares anyway).
What made this movie especially bad was the "Home Alone"-esquire music that forced joviality at moments when the Stone family was trifling, a horrible section of Christmas-gone- horribly-awry pratfalls (wherein the entire family gets covered in eggs and turkey in the kitchen, ha ha ha).
However, the hands-down worst part of this film were the shallow characters. Diane Keaton's mother was defined by coffee: she had a favorite mug and she hated it when people took the last coffee and didn't make more. Rachel McAdams (as the sister) was supposed to be a liberal college-type, but was nothing except a basketful of laundry and an NPR logo gives this away. (Otherwise she's just a petty brat.) Luke Wilson's character is utterly confusing - at first he's rather creepy (forcing his affections on SJP), then he's a pot- head with a Love and Rockets poster in his room, then he's a doting husband.
And worst of all is Durmot Mulroney, whose character development (or lack thereof) the movie centers on. What we finally begin to understand, only through horrible dialog, is that The Family Stone doesn't want Durmot Mulroney to marry SJP because he isn't being "true to himself." If this would have been at all clear in any kind of set-up to the movie, perhaps, perhaps The Family Stone could have had a bit of redemption. As it is, it did not, and therefore this movie is one of the absolute worst films of all time.