Bleah. I create these "rotten tomato" posts not to review movies per se like I really have something to say about them, but to remind myself of what I've watched. I think the reason I didn't write up this movie before when I saw it on cable was because I turned it on halfway through.
Too bad this time, because I turned it on at the beginning, and having some vague memory of the title, having turned it on halfway through before, and having found it intriguing, I decided to watch it.
I remember the title from when the film was released. I noted the pedigree of the title and that it was riffing on Sly & the Family Stone (as well as the too-clever double-entendre of balls), and as a Hollywood film, I promptly disregarded it.
When I turned it on part way through, I remember thinking that the movie couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a melodrama or a comedy, and I'm pretty sure I didn't watch it to the very end before, because I don't remember it being a schmaltzy, tear-jerking Hollywood stinker with a ridiculous feel-good happy ending. Or I simply, and more likely, blocked it out.
But I did recognize the attraction of when I turned on to it before. There was emotion involved regarding someone dying (woohoo, good times), and it was a family holiday film, which always begs comparison to one of my all-time favorite films, a family holiday film, "Home for the Holidays".
What I had forgotten from before was my general dislike of anything Sarah Jessica Parker or Wilson brothers, Luke in this case, although I recognize the talent of Luke and Owen Wilson. They're good, I just have to be dragged to see anything they're in.
As for Sarah Jessica Parker, I just don't see the appeal. But in this movie, I do. And it has a name. Rachel McAdams, whose appearance makes Sarah Jessica Parker tolerable. Sarah Jessica Parker walks into a bar. The bartender asks, "Why the long face?". She does get credit for Matthew Broderick, though.
All in all, it was not worth watching. Great acting, Hollywood quality, but a stinker of a film with an ending that makes me wonder, "did I just watch this?". Seriously, he ended up marrying her, and she ended up with him?!! Gimme a break. Rotten 4 out of 10 tomatoes.
Lest I suggest that it was eye candy Rachel McAdams (I do think she's a good actress, not just eye candy, it's just that she needs a few more films under her belt to make that unquestionable) that prevents giving this movie a lesser rating, I should also say ... Claire Danes.
Claire Danes who was also in:
Home for the Holidays (1995, USA)
Like I said, one of my all-time favorite movies, directed by the impressive Jodie Foster, starring one of my favorite actresses, Holly Hunter, and including Claire Danes, who amazes me no matter how small a role she takes.
The reason this is one of my favorite films of all-time is because of the progression, the pacing and the emotional pitch. The ending is also arguably feel-good, but for a completely different reason than "The Family Stone".
The feel-good tone of that film was reached by someone dying and a future that has ridiculously unlikely and forced circumstances, which apparently makes the American mainstream ooh and ah and feel really good about themselves for some reason, but makes me wretch and puke.
This film is emotionally more cathartic. It kicks cliches like how "family is all we've got" in the family stones, and states a more realistic "who are these people? where did I even come from?". Family memories, childhood memories, no matter how crappy things have become, that's where we came from, and that's what makes them treasures.
There's often nothing we can do about what we've become or the family relationships we have. But family memories are fact and they are the basis of who we are, no matter how different or divergent our lifestyles or beings become, and they will haunt. Unless you just learn to chill the fuck out.
