Susan Granger’s review of “The Family Stone” (20th Century-Fox)
Aside from last year’s “Bad Santa” and Jodie Foster’s “Home For the Holidays,” rarely have I seen such a maudlin, manipulative, mean-spirited mess masquerading as a holiday comedy.
Revolving around the annual Christmas celebration of a New England family, the Stones, it begins as the oldest son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) brings his girlfriend Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) home to meet his parents (Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson) and siblings (Luke Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Elizabeth Reaser, Ty Giordano). An uptight, nervous New Yorker, Meredith’s inflexible and intractable and the free-thinking, eccentric Stones take an immediate dislike to her. Hostility replaces hospitality, so Meredith moves to a nearby hotel and gets her saucy sister Julie (Claire Danes) to join her. Inevitably, secrets are revealed and new allegiances are formed.
Writer/director Thomas Bezucha was obviously influenced by Frank Capra’s “You Can’t Take It With You,” based on George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s hit play. But Capra’s characters were zany, not deliberately cruel. Everett and Meredith’s relationship is doomed from the getgo, so a break-up is predictable. Tackling this annoying, un-likable prude, “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker shows that, like David Caruso and Debra Messing, she’s smaller-than-life; that is, far better on TV than the big screen, and Mulroney’s performance is stultified. On the plus side, Diane Keaton is lethally funny and terminally sad, blending humor with heartbreak. But showing clips of the classic “Meet Me in St. Louis” sharply illustrates how disappointing this contemporary story is. On the Granger Movie Gauge, “The Family Stone” is a schmaltzy 5, ostensibly about not judging people’s shortcomings and being charitable. Bah, humbug!
