Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and Real!, August 29, 2006
OK, this film was a bit misleading in its promotion. This film is NOT a comedy. It has comedic elements but the film is a drama. The film is perfect in its execution. It is far from the cheesy Christmas films of old. It harkens back to films like "Home for the Holidays" with Holly Hunter (a classic in its own right for both Hunter and Robert Downey Jr's performances). The familial angst, the liberal meeting the conservative, the desire for love, family protecting family, it's all here. Sarah Jessica Parker shines in a very different role for her. You feel her painful shyness at dinner when she is so misunderstood in her intentions that she ends up in the car crying.
Not all aspects of the film are to be applauded but the underlying story of the "family stone" which could be the ring requested from the matriarch of the family, the last name of the family of course or the matriarch herself are amazing. Very touching moment at the end, if a bit unrealistic, where they all focus on the picture given as a gift of a pregnant Diane Keaton.
Rachel McAdams is also a shining part of this truly ensemble performance. She plays the little sister with tenacity and twisted pleasure but hides a softer side under sarcasm. She is the perfect foil to Sarah Jessica Parker and I love the humor, heart and love shown throughout this wonderful film.
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28 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better than the average genre entry, July 22, 2006
This sort of movie has been done to death, one would think - look at names that are listed in preceding reviews - and while Family Stone fails to provide an earthshattering new insight into the set piece, I think it's a cut above average.
For one thing, the family itself is only slightly disfunctional in its relationships among one another, a distinct relief. For example, the gay son is loved and accepted, as is his partner. There are hints that the mother may have been too clinging but, all in all, the now-adult children of Mr. and Mrs. Stone, magnificently portrayed by Diane Keaton, seem to be handling their lives with aplomb and success.
The Family Stone rolls out its disfunction when a newcomer attempts to join the family. The catalyst for this family gathering is Christmas, probably the worst of holidays for families in general because Chritmas is also the annual festival of dashed expectations, at first material and quickly psychological. A scene late in the movie, when Parker's character distributes presents, demonstrates this motif beautifully.
Our first hint that things will go badly is a scene where some members of the family mock the inniment-fiancee of the eldest son before she has even arrived with the son for a first-time visit. Then you notice that the husband of the only other child (of five) who is married has delayed his arrival until Christmas Day. Hmmmm...what does he know?
And badly things do go, usually in an over-the-top and frantic way saved only by the extraordinary acting skill and comfortable (or appropriately uncomfortable) ensemble work of the excellent cast (besides Keaton, there's Craig T. Nelson, Dermot Mulroney, Luke Wilson, Rachel McAdams, and Sarah Jessica Parker). These people take nastiness to new heights and I believe if all of us hadn't been through something similar at some point in our lives we'd insist it was unrealistic. C'mon...think a little harder, about what happened when Aunt Sally got tipsy last Thanksgiving and decided to tell your Dad what it was like being the younger, "dumber" one, all those years ago?
Parker also is particularly good, portraying a buttoned-down (but fashionable) Wall-Street yuppie, at least 150-degrees different from her flighty role and Sex and the City.
I enjoyed Family Stone more than I expected to, and it made me think about how families work (and don't work), too. A few of the plot endings at the end really do push credibility too far, but everything is not wrapped up in a ball of cotton candy, just like real life.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Uptight New Yorker visits Home of "Liberal" Vipers, June 4, 2006
Meredith Morton, an uptight, type A New Yorker, visits her boyfriend's extreme liberal family in Connecticut. I think this family is supposed to look very tight-knit, and Merdith is the horrible outsider coming to steal their precious son.
They spend the first 2/3 of the movie backbiting her, insulting her, and being just as basically classless as possible all in the name of "we're so close-knit and liberal" as if being deliberately rude to houseguests is some kind of liberal virtue.
It seems the director went so overboard trying to shill for liberal values (most of which I share, don't get me wrong), that they just wound up making this family look horrible, and just makes you more sympathetic to Meredith, who is, of course, rather clueless in articulating her opinions (and which the family deliberately misconstrues in an attempt to make her look bad to their precious son so he won't marry her).
This movie made me very uncomfortable. I didn't realize I could feel sympathy for someone who referred to being straight as being "normal," but this movie showed me, yes I can.
If you hate liberals, and want that opinion reinforced, this is a great movie for you.
On the upside, Sarah Jessica Parker's costumes, hair and makeup were gorgeous. What can I say? I love the uptight, Type A New Yorker look.
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