Movie Review: The Family Stone

Yesterday after spending the majority of the day at my mom's helping to rearrange and organize things, I decided that I was in need of some relaxation on the sofa and so put on the DVR'd movie The Family Stone.

Let me cut to the chase and say that if you were considering watching this movie, please find something more productive to do with your time. I'm told gouging your eyes out with spoons is a good way to pass the afternoon. Anything has got to be preferable to watching this movie.

The basic plot is uptight woman almost engaged to the only son who has his act together in a huge family of, essentially, hippies goes home with him for Christmas. They don't like her (shocker), she doesn't get why (because she's uptight, but has a heart of gold!) so she calls her sister to come stay with her at the hotel to try and break up the pain. Her sister, of course, could be the long-lost cousin of this gaggle of misfits and instantly fits in. Brother with act together (who was going to propose to the uptight one) instantly falls in love with free spirited sister. Uptight woman gets drunk with the most loserly of the loserly brothers and then, of course, they fall in love. And this, plus all the bad behavior on the part of the family (which I think was meant to be funny but really was just cruel) is excusable because the mother has cancer. In the end, everyone ends up with the "right" person and blah blah blah.

I don't get why writers think this is romance. If you're with someone, you stay with that person. And if you decide that you don't want to be with that person, you break up with them. You don't go around doing ridiculous things with other people and then break up with the other person. You sure don't do it all on the same weekend. If you realize that you don't want to be with the person you brought home to meet your family, then you break up with them after the weekend is over. And then, realistically? You still never get to date her sister. It's skeezy and disgusting to think that this is romance. This was just one step away from the skeezy and disgusting "romance" that people thought was in that movie where the husband agrees to let his wife sleep with the multi-millionaire (Robert Redford I think?) and she goes along with it and then they fall in love (gag) blah blah. That's not romance. It's just creepy. And I wouldn't think that any woman who respected herself would want anything to do with either of them at the end of the day.

And yes, I realize this is a movie and it's fictional. But seriously, there are thousands - if not millions - of good plot ideas out there. Plots that are worth suspending disbelief and letting yourself enjoy the romance of it all. This was not one of them. This wasn't even in the same country as one of them. And there weren't even any good laughs to be hand in the midst of the misery.

The Family Stone gets No Stars out of Five. I really want my two hours back.