There’s a subgenre of films I like to call “dysfunctional family lite.” They can best be summed up by a line uttered by Tina Fey in the new film This Is Where I Leave You: “You guys are idiots, but you’re my idiots.”
In these films—they include The Family Stone, Home for the Holidays, Nothing Like the Holidays, et al—families are complicated, messy, filled with secrets, resentments, but, above all, love. There’s usually some colorful chaos at the center of the film, followed by some fondly exasperated eye rolls, followed by some version of a group hug. Some of these films are better, more honest, than others (Parenthood still remains the gold standard, but Little Miss Sunshine is another really good one), but they mostly seek to comfort us about our own lives, our own dysfunctional families.
Neatly into this mix comes This Is Where I Leave You, which is entertaining enough—I mean, with that cast, how could it not be?—but, true to the “dysfunction lite” genre, its beats and insights are largely sitcom level.
When we meet Jason Bateman’s Michael Bluth—I mean, uh, Judd Altman—he’s getting a double whammy of bad news—first he discovers his wife is cheating on him with his boss; then his father dies. He goes to his childhood home for the funeral where his writer mother (Jane Fonda), now brandishing a spectacular new set of jugs (a gag the filmmakers milk for all its worth—no pun intended), insists that he and his adult siblings sit shiva for the traditional seven days. So suddenly the Altmans are forced into togetherness, bringing their messy lives and complicated histories with them.
Sister Wendy (Tina Fey) has a workaholic husband who’s glued to his smartphone and two small children, one of whom totes his little plastic potty with him wherever he goes—another hi-larious ongoing gag—but she’s secretly pining away for the boy next door (Timothy Olyphant), who never got to leave next door because of a brain injury. Big brother Paul (Corey Stall) is trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant with his wife Alice (Kathryn Hahn—more of her in movies please!) and it’s putting a strain on their relationship, especially since Alice used to date Judd and Paul harbors some lingering jealousy. Then there’s the family baby, loveable ne’er do well Phillip (Adam Driver), who rolls up to the funeral in a Porsche with hip-hop blaring from the stereo. How could he afford such a car? That’s attributable to his rich older girlfriend (Connie Britton), who also ends up in the house.
If that seems like a lot of drama to unpack, you’re right. This Is Where I Leave You, which is based on Jonathan Tropper’s popular novel, often feels both overstuffed and undercooked. (There could be a whole separate movie, for example, on the relationship between Wendy and her brain-damaged old beau.)
As mentioned, there’s lots of running schtick along the way and every serious conversation is punctuated with a laugh-track-ready joke. In one scene, Fonda explains how she’s keeping it all together by remembering her husband when he was strong and vital, not sick. “Also, I’m popping Xanax like candy,” she adds. (Ba-dum-tss!)
Adam Driver, with his restless, weird, compulsively watchable energy, almost single-handedly saves the day as Phillip. Every time director Shawn Levy doesn’t quite know what to do with a scene, he cuts to Driver, who serves up a funny line reading or inspired facial expression.
There’s a love story, too, between the uptight Judd and the quirky, charmingly strange Penny (Rose Byrne). (I’m waiting for movies to retire the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, but the end is apparently not nigh). Take a guess on whether he returns to a life of conformity or embraces a spontaneous life with her?
Also, for a film that was definitely aiming for laughter through your tears, This Is Where I leave You almost never moved me. The emotional beats are too facile and predictable. Judd can’t seem to conjure up any specific memories of his father—until one comes flooding back in what is supposed to be the film’s emotional climax. But the setup for this moment was so forced, and the moment itself so half-baked, it left me cold.
Look, there’s something to be said for confident mainstream filmmaking, which this most certainly is. I may have found the whole endeavor too contrived and shallow, but it’s all done with a deft hand. I can get behind people enjoying This Is Where I Leave You. But if you actually find it edifying, that’s where I’ll have to leave you.