| RATING: | 60% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
The never-less-than-excellent Robin WRIGHT PENN presides over a somewhat anodyne excursion into family drama.
The usual existential crises are in evidence such as a manic-depressive, pill-popping mother, but there is no real insight into the condition depicted nor any reasonable solution.
The film itself is as neurotic as the characters and can say nothing sensible about them - as opposed to merely humoring them for their emotional dishonesty and self-deception. Like them, the movie drifts along amiably enough but without any real direction or purpose.
Pretending to scratch away the surface of family life in the West to reveal the hidden depths lurking there, this film merely suggests that none of us is really what we seem. A hardly profound observation of people who favor material success over psychological well-being, then whinge-on about not being able to have it all in middle age. The characters remain as much ciphers to the audience as they do to each other and themselves because of the often-thin characterization.
This could have been a better film about the moments in our lives when - like our childhood discovery of the non-existence of a literal Santa Claus - we discover things about others that can both shake our self-confidence while allowing us to grow into better and more mature people. However, the emotional self-indulgence here - so common to the despised form called chick lit - is only held in check by the superb performances from all concerned.
The naïvely wishful-thinking ending only serves to emphasize the lack of any genuine dramatic catharsis here.
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