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"THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU"
(2014) (Jason Bateman, Tina Fey) (R)


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QUICK TAKE:
Dramedy: Four siblings are forced to sit Shiva for a week with their mother following their father's death, something that won't come easy for any of them.
PLOT:
Judd Altman (JASON BATEMAN) is the producer of a popular radio show hosted by Wade Beaufort (DAX SHEPARD). One day, Judd returns home to find his wife, Quinn (ABIGAIL SPENCER), having sex with Wade. Things get worse when he gets a call from his sister, Wendy (TINA FEY), that their father has died. Judd then travels to the home of his mother, Hilary (JANE FONDA), and reunites with his siblings.

Besides Wendy who's arrived there with her husband, Barry (AARON LAZAR), and their two young kids, there's oldest son Paul (COREY STOLL) whose wife, Annie (KATHRYN HAHN), desperately wants to get pregnant. Family black sheep Phillip (ADAM DRIVER) also arrives with a much older therapist, Tracy (CONNIE BRITTON), as his new girlfriend.

The siblings don't all get along, a point exacerbated when their mom announces that with the help of longtime family friend Rabbi Charles Grodner (BEN SCHWARTZ) -- whose nickname was "boner" back when they were growing up -- they're going to sit Shiva for an entire week. That brings to a head all sorts of longstanding and newer issues, not to mention old flames who still live nearby.

Among them is Wendy's former boyfriend, Horry Callen (TIMOTHY OLYPHANT), who still lives across the street with his mom, Linda (DEBRA MONK), due to a past brain injury, while Judd is reunited with Penny Moore (ROSE BYRNE), a skating instructor and former girlfriend. As the days pass, the siblings and those around them must contend with the forced togetherness and the conflict it creates.

OUR TAKE: 6 out of 10
I have no idea when dysfunctional families first arose, but I certainly imagine it was sometime after the caveman era (the antics of "The Croods" notwithstanding). After all, people back then had to worry about bigger problems, such as avoiding being eaten by predators while hoping to get enough food to eat. Then there's that nagging little problem that life expectancy back then was, well, fairly short.

Accordingly, and because most barely made it into their twenties, and due to those other issues, there simply wasn't time to worry about hurt emotions, feelings of abandonment, adult kids never coming to see their parents and so on. I guess such dysfunctional matters only came about once personal safety was more of a given and as life expectancies increased. With many of the bigger worries out of the way, boredom and other related downtime lead to the creation of such family riffs.

Nowadays, they nearly seem hardwired into most families, and that's long been fodder for many a movie, both of the comedy and drama varieties. Sometimes it's also a combination of both, and the latest such dramedy to tread and splash about through such waters is "This Is Where I Leave You." While it contains more of the former than the latter genre material, it has enough heartfelt moments to prevent it from being a straight out yuk-fest.

Shawn Levy directs from a screenplay by Jonathan Tropper (who adapts his own novel) that has Jason Bateman play one of four siblings (the others embodied by Tina Fey, Adam Driver and Corey Stoll) brought together -- some against their will and/or better judgment -- for their father's funeral. Their mother -- a game Jane Fonda sporting super-sized breast implants, one of several running gags the filmmakers repeatedly return to -- informs them that their father's wish was that they sit Shiva in his honor.

That sounds horrific to them, but could come off as a bounty of potential for viewers into such pics where the laughs, arguing, tears and hugs stem from how the family does and doesn't get along among themselves, their significant others, and a number of outsiders.

I'll admit that while some of the material feels far too forced for comedy (including that revolving around Kathryn Hahn playing a wife who desperately wants to get pregnant), some of the bits do work and range from amusing to downright hilarious. And some of the more dramatic moments (including those involving Timothy Olyphant playing a neighbor still dealing with a past brain injury) do hit some decent emotional notes and thus give the film a bit more depth than some might be expecting.

Aside from the moments of forced comedy, the performances from the cast are generally good and deliver what's needed, with Bateman nicely grounding both his character and thus the film as a whole. While I could have done with a great deal less of the adult comedy, language and such (really, a film like this shouldn't warrant more note taking than "The Equalizer" or "A Walk Among the Tombstones," yet it outperformed both films in such regards), overall I found the rest of the material to be both entertaining and emotionally engaging enough to earn the awkwardly titled "This Is Where I Leave You" a score of 6 out of 10.




Reviewed September 15, 2014 / Posted September 19, 2014


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