Review: This is Where I Leave You (2014)

This movie is where I got the idea from Flick Chicks latest Blogathon, which the round up post of which will be posted soon.  Here is the link if you want to check out what it's all about http://www.flick-chicks.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/dysfunctional-families-cast-thon.html

When their Father dies, four adult siblings are forced to come back to the childhood home and live under the same room for a week.  Judd (Jason Bateman) has split from his wife but has failed to tell his family, Wendy (Tina Fey) has to deal with seeing the love of her life again, Phillip (Adam Driver) arrives with his new (rich) girlfriend in tow and Paul (Corey Stoll) is dealing with his and his wife Annie's (Kathryn Hahn) delays in getting pregnant. Throw in their over-sharing Mother (Jane Fonda) for good measure and watch the chaos ensue.

I wouldn't say this film is terrible but I wouldn't say its great either.  It's thoroughly predictable (and I haven't read the book) and no matter how good the cast was the dialogue could not be saved.  I did enjoy watching it though, I wasn't bored by any means and it's certainly not the casts worst work (Admission and Bad Words spring to mind!) but it just didn't have enough to keep me laughing or keep me crying.  I'm tempted to read the book now, because it must surely be better than the film (they normally are!). The cast did an alright job, but it was a bit too silly for me. Every single character had too much crazy going on, it was hard to keep up at times!

Bateman's dry humour fits perfectly with the dramedy (as i have just been informed Drama/Comedies have been shortened to these days!), but he is the same character he pretty much always is, there's not depth to his character, he is just reading the lines off the page and then off home for tea!  I didn't buy his relationship with Penny (Rose Byrne) for one minute, they just didn't fit right for me. I'm a huge Jason Bateman fan but he didn't wow me in this. 

The rest of the cast seem to lack chemistry with each other or aren't a real character at all, Wendy's husband seems to have no connection with anyone in the family including Wendy and fortunately leaves pretty rapidly (obviously leaving Wendy open to reignite an old flame).  As much as I love Conne Britton (huge Nashville fan), she appeared to only be written in to showcase how screwed up Phillip is, which could have been done without her.  A lot of wasted talent here.

I read on IMDB that originally, Adam Shankman was going to direct this, and when he was, the main cast was Zac Efron, Malin Akerman, Leslie Mann, Jason Sudeikis and Goldie Hawn, alongside Jason Bateman. This would have been far better! Totally better!!

Overall, not great but not a disaster.  Happily watched it once but won't be watching it again.  If you want to watch s film about a messed up family and it's messed up issues, watch August: Osage County instead.