Movie Review: This Is Where I Leave You (2014)

Genre: Comedy  

Director: Shawn Levy  

Starring: Jason Bateman, Jane Fonda, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Katheryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant  

Running Time: 103 minutes  

Synopsis: Judd Altman (Jason Bateman) discovers his wife cheating, then his father dies. The family gathers for seven days of mourning, reuniting Judd with his mother Hilary (Jane Fonda), sister Wendy (Tina Fey), brothers Phillip and Paul (Adam Driver and Corey Stoll), and high school friend Penny (Rose Byrne). Hilary is an author known for exploiting her children's embarrassments; Wendy's husband is inattentive and she reignites a relationship with neighbour Horry (Timothy Olyphant); the irresponsible Phillip shows up with older woman Tracy (Connie Britton); while Paul and his wife Annie (Katheryn Hahn) are having trouble conceiving a child.

What Works Well: The extended Altman family antics provide a steady stream of humour, mainly because their foundational eccentric attributes and rub-points knowingly reflect widespread dynamics with only slight exaggerations. Jason Bateman conveys bemused calmness barely containing rage, and shares the spotlight with a terrific cast. Director Shawn Levy keeps the mood light and introduces new twists at a steady clip, nourishing the humour with revelations and affection as the Altmans occasionally rise above quirks and towards hidden strengths.

What Does Not Work As Well: Writer Jonathan Tropper has a few more characters than good ideas: several scenes declare bankruptcy and default to juvenile fistfights, while the rush to release tension through sexual escapades is quickly predictable.

Conclusion: This is where adult siblings confirm the wisdom of living apart.



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Movie Review: Sisters (2015)

A raunchy comedy, Sisters benefits from sharp timing and chemistry of the two leads, but is otherwise one long endless scene of adults behaving badly.

Maura and Kate Ellis (Amy Poehler and Tina Fey) are sisters still trying to sort out their lives. Maura is divorced and has always placed everybody else's happiness ahead of hers. Kate is irresponsible, cannot hold a job and is a single mom to teenager Haley (Madison Davenport). They are both shocked and disappointed when their parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) announce plans to sell the family home in Orlando.

While cleaning out their childhood rooms Maura and Kate decide to have one final bash in the big house and invite all their friends, but pointedly exclude Brinda (Maya Rudolph), Kate's frenemy since high school. The party is well attended but muted, until the alcohol and drugs start flowing and it turns into a raucous event. Kate is desperate to hook up with hunky handyman James (Ike Barinholtz), but the night will only get wilder and there are many scores to settle.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are a funny and fearless couple, share undeniable rapport and are unafraid to let loose and laugh at themselves. However, Sisters is unfortunately beneath them. The Paula Pell script works its way in fits and starts to the big party scene, and that is where it stays. There is some fun to be had with adults partying as if they were 20 years younger, but once the rowdy and juvenile antics take over the film quickly runs out of steam.

The funnier moments are the side quests burrowing deep into irreverence, such as Maura and Korean aesthetician Hae Won (Greta Lee) descending into an ill considered but hilarious pronunciation duel, or bad girl Kate drooling over tree trunk armed drug dealer Pazuzu (John Cena).

Every 15 minutes or so director Jason Moore briefly pauses the raunchiness for a brief interlude featuring more tender interaction, either between the sisters or exploring the dysfunctionality dominating the mother-daughter bond between Haley and Kate. The attempts to tackle themes of growing up and settling down appear slapped together and never convince, with James Brolin and Dianne Wiest reduced to caricatures in the parent roles.

The Sisters are ready and willing to deliver laughs, but need a more ambitious venue than one long night of irresponsibility.

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Movie Review: Mean Girls (2004)

A high-school comedy about girls fitting in, Mean Girls brings plenty of edgy attitude and delivers a funny, uncompromised story about the perils of the pack.

Sixteen year old Cady (Lindsay Lohan) has been home-schooled all her life, Now her parents have relocated from Africa to Evanston, Illinois, and Cady has to face the wilderness that is her local high school. She meets two happy independent-minded students in semi-Gothic Janis (Lizzy Caplan) and openly gay Damian (Daniel Franzese), but Cady is soon exposed to the most envied girl trio in the school: the pretty, fashionable, cool and snooty Plastics. Their queen bee is Regina (Rachel McAdams), and her clique consists of the submissive Gretchen (Lacey Chabert) and the quite dense Karen (Amanda Seyfried).

Regina sizes up Cady and gives her a chance to join the troop. Janis seizes the opportunity to use Cady as an informant to reveal the secrets of the Plastics. Cady starts to develop a crush on classmate Aaron (Jonathan Bennett), but learns that he's off limits because he was Regina's former boyfriend. It does not take long for Cady to be both horrified and seduced by the mean-spirited behaviour of the Plastics, and to learn that belonging means making difficult choices.

Directed by Mark Waters and written by Tina Fey (who gives herself a small but shiny role as a teacher with problems of her own), Mean Girls pulls no punches. Life in suburbia is portrayed as a hazardous jungle with the animals barely concealed beneath a veneer of civility, and Cady's challenge is to adapt to her new environment or be eaten alive. Waters keeps the laughs coming in a compact 97 minute package, and the humour is continuously juiced with the poison spewed by teenagers defining their turf and individuality to scare away the perceived competition.

Without fully escaping the limitations of the high school comedy genre, Mean Girls manages to stretch. Cady makes every mistake in the book, attempting to be nice, having a foot in a couple of camps, and trying to join the Plastics while simultaneously spying on them. She is of course doomed to fail in the most spectacular way, and Mean Girls gets the environment right: the long-established rules of place will dominate the individual, redefining social norms is bound to fail, and belonging to competing herds is not smart: it is treason.

Cady flirts with the dark side and demonstrates to herself how easy it is to transition from eager wannabe to a broadly despised pretender. To regain her balance she will need to learn to carve out her own niche, rather than try to change the evolutionary order. Fey does struggle a bit with the final chapter, as Cady's attempts at atonement are clumsily (and literally) run over by a bus.

Before Lindsay Lohan embarked on her career-destroying lifestyle, she was one of Hollywood's most promising young actresses, and here she proves why. Lohan finds the space for Cady to be both the smart outsider and the eager wannabe, grounded by a stable family-oriented upbringing but not immune to the seductive forces of cheap popularity. In contrast Rachel McAdams did use early roles like Regina as fuel for a successful career, and here she goes all-in as the embodiment of haughty entitlement. Regina has the perfect role model in her mom (Amy Poehler), a woman with all the money she needs to not care about what it means to be a parent.

Mean Girls is smart, sassy, real, rude, and often, a riot of laughs.

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Movie Review: Date Night (2010)

A comedy that feeds off the boundless energy of its stars, Date Night manages to be funny and engaging while maintaining its human centre.

The Fosters, Phil (Steve Carell) and Claire (Tina Fey), are married with children, living in New Jersey, and navigating the unadventurous terrain of family life. Looking to liven up an evening by heading to a swanky New York restaurant without a reservation, they impersonate another couple, the Tripplehorns, to get a table, triggering a madcap adventure.

It turns out that the Tripplehorns are embroiled in a blackmail scheme that involves New York's leading mobster, apparent police corruption, and the District Attorney's office. The Fosters are soon being chased and threatened all over town as they try to figure out what is going on and how to stop it.

Date Night works, for the most part, thanks to Steve Carell and especially Tina Fey. They establish an early and believable rapport with each other, and their likability and natural talent for humor drives the films through its rougher spots. A lot of the dialogue appears to be at least partially ad-libbed, and with talent like Carell and Fey letting loose, this is a good thing.

The supporting cast, including Mark Wahlberg, James Franco and Ray Liotta, play their parts appropriately straight, to provide relief for Carrel and Fey's comedy.

The film is full of bright touches and pleasant surprises, including an unexpectedly innovative variation to the movie car chase scene. But unfortunately there is no escaping the over-the-top, just-in-time Hollywood climax with all threads neatly tied up.

Date Night playfully delivers an important message to married couples settled into a staid suburban routine: be thankful for the bliss of a calm life.

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