The Family Stone (2005)
Directed by Thomas Bezucha
Written by Thomas Bezucha
Starring Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Jessica Parker
Release Date December 16th, 2005
Published December 16th, 2005
Streaming on Starz via Amazon Prime
The amazing Diane Keaton has become an icon of grace and sensibility. Her Oscar nominated roles in Reds , Annie Hall and Something's Gotta Give are marvelous examples of her range and exceptional talent. Even lesser works like The First Wives Club are elevated by her presence. Casting Diane Keaton is like buying insurance against a bad script. Even a script as weak as the one for Keaton's latest film The Family Stone, looks a lot better for having her in it.
It doesn't hurt that Keaton's involvement helped entice an A-list of actors to play her children, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney and Luke Wilson, in this tepid holiday dramedy. Proof that a great cast can make the bitter pill of cliche go down like eggnog.
Diane Keaton stars in The Family Stone, as Sybil the matriarch of a large brood of grown children. With her college professor hubby, Kelly (Craig T. Nelson), Sybil is welcoming her five kids, and their various tagalongs, home for christmas. This year the Stone's are playing host to one particularly interesting guest. Her name is Meredith and if all goes according to plans she will soon be the oldest Stone son Everett's (Dermot Mulroney) fiancee.
Unfortunately for Everett, Meredith's stick in the mud, buttoned up personality has already rubbed his family the wrong way. Everett's youngest sister Amy (Rachel McAdams) has met Meredith and decided she hates her. Amy has busily poisoned the family well, including older sister Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser), middle child Thad (Tyrone Giordano) and his partner, Patrick (Brian J. White). Dad and his other son Ben (Luke Wilson) at least attempt to be open to Meredith.
The Family Stone breaks down to a sort of red state-blue state conflict. The Stones are liberal, ivy leaguers with a gay son who is also deaf and dating a black guy and Meredith represents the uptight, conservative business-minded red staters. The conflict is a battle for Everett's soul. Will he return to his old liberal open-minded self or marry Meredith and become a Bush voter?
Supposedly helping Meredith fight this battle is her sister Julie (Claire Danes) but unfortunately her late arrival only serves to make things worse.
The Family Stone attempts to mix screwball family comedy and heartfelt family drama with subplots including a dramatic disease and a chase scene to stop a character from leaving town forever. It's a difficult and well-worn mixture and one the film bears only because of the expert cast. There is nothing new or innovative about writer-director Andrew Bezucha's approach to this commonplace material, so he relies on this likable group of pro actors to carry it off and, to a certain degree, it works.
Sarah Jessica Parker delivers the film's best performance. Her Meredith is sympathetic as the outsider in a group of overbearing tightly knit liberals. In the hole from the moment she arrives, she has our sympathies. However, Meredith is never merely a victim. Her lack of social graces and occasions of running at the mouth when she shouldn't combined with a complete lack of a sense of humor make some of the family's negativity toward her understandable. Parker plays the conflicts well, especially playing against her natural likeability.
Parker is let down on more than one occasion by the script that forces in nearly every well-worn trope of this genre. There is the aforementioned chase scene, a comically inept fight scene and of course plenty of spilled food for characters to roll around in. That we forgive many of these cliches is a function of the lovable qualities of this terrific cast.
The Family Stone is a cousin to a number of memorable family Christmas comedies like Home For The Holidays starring Holly Hunter, the romance and family drama from Love Actually and the movie-of-the-week style tragedy of Meryl Streep's One True Thing. Andrew Bezucha does not lift elements from these films as much as mimic them with his own twist. These are well known tropes that each of these films use to push dramatic buttons and The Family Stone is merely the latest film to engage them.
The cast of The Family Stone makes the familiarity work for them. Like watching old friends gather at a holiday party you can't help but enjoy the way the cast bonds, bickers and eventually falls in food. A more pessimistic viewer might expect more from this excellent cast but that is reviewing the film that The Family Stone is not. Remarking on the film it is, The Family Stone is not to be taken seriously and likely not to be remembered by this time next year. It is just an average good natured holiday comedy.
Not for the cynical, The Family Stone is an overly familiar holiday family movie that pushes all of the same emotional buttons as is the norm of the genre. That it manages to be quite often funny and occasionally heartfelt is due to a cast of real pros. Like the revival of a favorite play, you know what is going to happen next because you have seen it so many times before, you watch to see this new group of actors give new life to the material. The Family Stone makes familiarity work by dressing it in a whole lot of star power.
