The Family Stone

The Family Stone Feels Like a Kick in the Stones

The Family Stone

It’s so easy to get the critics going. They’re so predictable and so often on a soap box that it’s difficult to take them seriously anymore. It’s almost as though a checklist of politically correct requirements exist and they watch films checking them off as they appear, the more liberal dogma in the film the higher the rating. Now, this is something that can be overlooked as long as the movie is actually good. I mean, if you avoided every Hollywood movie with a liberal agenda you’d see about 2 movies a year. The problem seems to be that somewhere along the line the requirement for a movie being good seems to have vanished altogether. Just drop in some messages, a few of the well known protected classes, ridicule the very things most Americans still believe in, and, like Pavlov’s dog, the mindless critics come running to give you that 4^th star.

Again, this isn’t to say I’m easily offended. I’m not. Drop in all the liberal messages and agendas that you want, so long as it’s well written, well directed and well acted; I will like it. The Lethal Weapon series, for example, was famous for Joe Donner dropping messages in on purpose, like pro-choice t-shirts being worn by minor characters and the whole bit about the dolphin safe tuna. You know what? The movies were fun and I didn’t care about the minor agenda. It didn’t take over the movie though. It seems that as time passes the agenda has become more important than things like plot and characterization. Originality even.

The latest is example of this is The Family Stone. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat through such pretentious, predictable and formulaic drivel. I can say with certainty I’m not the only one who felt this way because, for the first time in recent memory I witnessed people walk right out of the movie. The closest thing I have seen to this level of audience displeasure was a steady rumbling of disapproval heard throughout Dark Water.

One of the principal characters and, coincidentally, the least interesting story line, was the archetype of liberal dogma's representative of a protected group, that it was actually laugh out loud funny.

This dysfunctional family features, like every single family on earth apparently does, a gay son. Not just gay though. He’s also in an interracial relationship. And deaf. And adopting a child with his gay lover. No seriously, I’m not making this up. In order to advance this bizarre agenda many story lines and characters that could have been more interesting go virtually unexplored.

The story begins with Everett Stone, played by Dermot Mulroney bringing his girlfriend home for the first time, and for the Holidays. Meredith Morton, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, is supposed to be uptight, sort of cold, and terrified of not being accepted. Everett’s family is, for some reason hell bent on not liking her. She is given a luke-warm reception, picked on, talked about, ridiculed and ostracized right from the moment she walks in the door.

Particularly fierce is the angry Amy Stone, played by Rachel McAdams. Dianne Keaton as Sybil Stone is equally nasty. So bizarre is Sybil Stone that she can seemingly accept all manner of behavior from her children but she can’t accept a stressed out, nervous and surprisingly fragile Meredith Morton.

In the first hour of the film Sybil laughs away at her children’s cruelty, their illicit drug use, promiscuous sex and dysfunctional behavior while steadfastly ignoring the silent plight of the poor girl that just wants to fit in. Mind you, Sybil is supposed to be the sympathetic character, blurting out such gems as the nonchalant, “Bret popped Amy’s cherry!” Now please, can we have a little realism here? Is there any self-respecting parent out there who would talk about her children this way? Now, aside from being just weird and unrealistic, it didn’t serve the story a bit nor did it advance the plot. It was just Diane Keeton reprising her tired, tired role as some uber-liberal that was just so enlightened and accepting that she knows better than all of us.

Later, Sybil will actually say that she wishes all her children were gay. When Parker’s character questions the wisdom of such a weird statement she is immediately vilified, humiliated and run off. She questions the "accepted" dogma that gays should have children and the indignation of the family is hard to sum up. Who is she to question this? After all, someone has apparently decided that this debate has been settled and that’s that.

Now, when the crude and vile Sybil decides she does not want Meredith marrying her son she reneges on a promise made to her son years prior. When called on this her eloquent response to her son, in regards to breaking a solemn promise is, “Tough shit.”

Ignored in this mess of agenda pushing and overt cruelty towards Morton (obviously supposed to be the …conservative at the dinner table) are some potentially interesting characters. The wonderfully talented Craig T. Nelson is barely utilized except for some Forrest Gump type moments where he tries to utter some nugget of insight and finds himself largely ignored.

McAdams plays the perpetually angry Amy Stone who appears to have some interesting back-story but we never hear of it. What’s with the attitude? The anger at the world and unending nastiness? The battered car, failed romances and on-going dance with the flame that so lovingly “Popped her cherry”? Well, we never find out. Instead of a decently developed character she’s just some white noise the writers use to bash Meredith at any turn and repeatedly demonstrate her unacceptability and uptightness. Oh, you didn’t know? Questioning dysfunctional behavior, crude attitudes towards your children, and being nervous around a hostile family whose acceptance you desperately need makes you uptight and vile. You learn something new every day.

McDermot’s character starts to develop into something interesting, a character with some passion and backbone, but it fizzles quickly. He hangs his potential fiancée out to dry at an embarrassing dinner scene and shamelessly decides he’d rather have her sister at the film's midway point. All that stuff about him being a deeply feeling, protective and empathetic character are summarily tossed out the window with no explanation and little regard for consistency of character.

All the usual plot suspects are here. Get your tired dramedy check list handy. Family tragedy? Check. Irreverent, funny and likeable sibling? Check. Love trysts? Check. Solemn father trying to hold it all together? Check. It’s all here, it’s all been done and done better.

But the critics? Oh, they loved it. A gay interracial couple with one deaf guy. Adopting a child you say? Ding, ding, Pavlov’s dog, quickly turn your thumb up! Embrace this trite drivel; drive people to the theaters where they will assuredly be disappointed. But at the very least they will have been exposed, no matter how unwittingly, to the agenda.

This giant disaster of a movie was written by a Fashion Executive straight from Ralph Lauren. Do us a favor Thomas Bezucha, move from the typewriter and back to the sewing machine. One more of these movies and I’ll wish for a good set of sewing needles with which to poke my eyes out.

The bottom line is this: If you want a good, touching and well written Dramedy then go buy Parent Hood on DVD. It’s a better film, a more touching film and it actually features likeable consistent characters. I don’t yet have a rating system like thumbs up or stars, so let me say that if I did, then The Family Stone would get 0 stars, 2 thumbs down and 0 out of 4 anything.