The Family Stone

The Family Stone (Director: Thomas Bezucha)










Bezucha did a movie called Big Eden, whatever that is. This movie was also written by Bezucha, so we can blame him totally.

You see that picture up there? See what it sort of implies (and well, ends up bluntly saying)? Right back at ya, pal. There's a lot to say about this abysmal effort. Where in most cases you could simply dismiss a holiday comedy for being dumb or misfiring, The Family Stone has so many things in it that are wrong-headed, clumsy, and lazy that I'm going to pull out all the knives for this one. I was personally insulted by this movie, and I don't think the movie had any intention of doing so. That's why it's even more infuriating.

Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the career-minded uptight gal who is practically engaged to Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney, who has officially taken Bill Pullman's old job), who is bringing her out to meet the family for the holidays. Meet mom Sybil (Diane Keaton), and dad Kelly (Craig T. Nelson). Then there's the eldest daughter Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) who has a daughter of her own and another baby on the way, and then there's the single, gorgeous, and mean Amy (Rachel McAdams), and the goofy Ben (Luke Wilson), and the gay and deaf Thad (Tyrone Giordano), who has brought his black lifemate Patrick (Brian J. White) in for the fun. Everett wants to give Meredith a special ring that his mom has promised to give him when he wants to get married. Of course, that's complicated because Meredith is so uptight and wrong for him...and she doesn't want to give the ring up for someone like that, especially since she's dying. After various family mishaps, Meredith calls her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to come out and save her from the family that doesn't like her. Sparks start flying between Julie and Everett, and Meredith and Ben.

Whether you think this is good or not may depend on how much you are willing to swallow just because the movie tells you that's what you need to swallow. There were many scenes in this that expect the audience to just deal with it, and it makes no effort on its own to make us think the choices are correct, or fated. The whole love quadrangle thing is completely unbelievable.

And that takes me to one painful scene at a dinner table. This is the type of liberal bullshit mindset I can't stand. The gay couple wants to adopt a kid. That, in of itself, I don't have much of a strong opinion on. It's how people act, and expect other people to act, that I think is wrong. Meredith starts spouting a little bit of right-wing thought at the dinner table, wondering if there really is a "gay gene" and so forth. Things are still lively and cordial at the table, and mommy says she wishes all her sons were gay so they wouldn't leave her. Touching.

Then Meredith says, "Surely you didn't wish for all your kids to be gay. I mean, I think life is hard enough without having to go through something like that," and so forth, which is wildly, unimaginably offensive for the Stone family to hear. She keeps trying to correct herself, because she obviously means no harm. And everybody at the table knows what she's trying to say (she has a preconceived notion of what it means to be gay), and they don't try to correct her, or try to ease her fears, they just get pissed off--thinking she's purposely trying to conjure gay hate-speak. And Thad, the deaf and gay son, needs to be comforted by mommy at the end of it, told he's not a freak, that she loves him. Touching.

It's a terrible scene for so many reasons, and it's smack dab in the middle of the movie. And the movie's "swallow this" mentality reigns through the rest of the picture, disguising itself as some holiday feel-good fest, when all the audience wants is something to hold on to (well, maybe it's just something I want to hold on to).