'This is Where I Leave You': Sibling Reveries
 Popcorn Column
by Michael S. Goldberger
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Warner Bros.
A funeral brings the Altmans home for seven days of predictable squabbling and extreme oversharing. |
Tolstoy begins his "Anna Karenina" with, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Thus, consciously or not, director Shawn Levy's "This is Where I Leave You" finds occasion to seriocomically affirm the maxim via a soap-opera-ish examination of the Altman family following the death of its patriarch.
You know the routine: The kids, now grownups and suffering one personal dissatisfaction or another, gather at the old manse to mourn, and there celebrate the sanctity of the nuclear unit by mercilessly tearing into each other.
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It's a friendly bit of pandering to a wishful need. Forget for a moment that it would have been a bore to grow up in a household like the one depicted in "Father Knows Best." Folks dreamily long for the security and calm of parents who don't fight, suffer financial anxiety or say hurtful things, and who always show up for your important events at school or play. Truth is, no such clans exist in real life. Besides, as divorce became epidemic in America, TV assured us that blended families seemed to be where all the fun was.
Of course it's all a façade, a modern conceit. No matter what ugly, flawed and broken personalities rise from the familial floorboards, that "Father Knows Best" fantasy lays in wait. It is unchanged since Oog brought the slaughtered mastodon home to wife Weenah and the children, Rugelach and Carol.
Currently, as we've launched into the stratosphere of where goeth the American family, the sitcom goal is to show just how tolerant a group of semi-related people can behave. Imperfect is the new perfect. But here, bucking the trend while still being ever so progressive and open-minded, "This is Where I Leave You" hedges its homage to the traditional ideal by asking the question, "How dysfunctional can my characters be? Let us count the ways."
In this variation on the theme, it's Mother Knows Best caricatured with righteously abashing incessancy by Jane Fonda. In the name of unity and keeping the home fires burning, the seven-day Shiva observance (Jewish postmortem ritual) Hillary Altman presides over turns into a mass confessional. No liberalism goes unturned ... so much so that, following one incredible divulgence after the next, there is nary a taboo left to thumb one's nose at. It's all rather predictable, with only one big yet ultimately unnecessary surprise for surprise's sake.
However, a fine ensemble cast, proficient and convincingly likable enough so that I remembered their names without referring to the credits, manages to win a modicum of our concern. Admit it or not, some strike close to home, providing bargain basement catharsis and/or affirmation. Which, in turn, provides us with an excuse to enjoy, albeit somewhat guiltily, the trite and syrupy recollections, confrontations and revelations that run rampant when the Altman siblings convene.
Each suffers a recognizable travail which the movie mulls to death.
Leading off, at center stage and ostensibly the protagonist, Judd, played by Jason Bateman, finds his life torn asunder when he learns that his wife (Abigail Spencer) has been having an affair with his boss. Next in importance is a strenuously emotive Tina Fey as sister Wendy, a mother of two involved in a loveless marriage who harbors a sad romantic secret and likes to take a drink. Balancing matters with his relative normality, Paul (Corey Stoll), entrusted to take over the family sporting goods store, would be perfectly happy if only he and his wife could get pregnant.
And then there's Adam Driver as Phillip, the baby, and problematically still so. He arrives in a Porsche convertible courtesy of the therapist (Connie Britton) several years his senior who has now become his fiancée to be. Describing the mismatch, the attractive doc assures her fondness, but makes no bones about it: "He's a moron."
Comedy relief, usually in the form of admissions suggesting there is truth in jest is augmented by the steady shock and awe patter delivered by Mom Altman, a published psychologist of some renown who made her kids' upbringing a public event. Fonda steals the show when the whim strikes and underlines Hillary's nonchalant bawdiness by proudly parading her surgically enhanced décolletage at every opportunity.
Unfortunately, while the Altman brood experience all manner of epiphanies, an unimaginative script that substitutes conviviality and quantity for inspiration and quality offers no profound insights ... just a bit of fleeting entertainment to cleanse the palate between headier films. As such, viewers who were hoping for an intelligent addendum to Tolstoy's aforementioned observation will likely feel abandoned by "This is Where I Leave You."
"This is Where I Leave You," rated R, is a Warner Bros. release directed by Shawn Levy and stars Jason Bateman, Tina Fey and Jane Fonda. Running time: 103 minutes
