This is Where I Leave You (2014)

* ½ out of ****

How is it possible that a movie can be made that is supposed to be both touching and irreverent, then only gives you characters that you don't particularly care about and who are almost completely unfunny? Well if you do all that, you have “This is Where I Leave You”, a painfully uninteresting comedy-drama without drama or comedy.

Jason Bateman is Judd Altman, a radio producer who comes home early to surprise his wife and instead catches her in bed with his boss. The scene where he walks in on them is the funniest in the movie, as he walks into the room and sits down while they remain oblivious. He and his wife split, he quits his job and is mouldering in self-pity when he finds that his father has dies and he needs to come home for the funeral.

His family is well cast, I'll at least admit that. Jane Fonda is his mother, a sexually liberated author that takes joy in making her sons uncomfortable. Tina Fey is the sister in a loveless marriage, and his brothers both have their issues, one in a marriage where his inability to get his wife pregnant rules is every move, and one shiftless brother who is getting marries for money. They all sit shiva for a week with their family, and reconnect with one another.

I could go on at some length about some of the plot points, but really that's all you would need to know. The film tries to make a touching story about how the siblings are all there for each other (and are still each others' greatest tormentors) and how blood connections always seem to be able to overcome. But it just isn't that interesting. Fey considers infidelity with a childhood friend, Bateman is tortured over his failures as a husband.... it's all pretty boring, run of the mill stuff. The film simply fails to make it interesting. But even worse, it fails in every attempt to make the relationships themselves interesting.  Bateman himself gets a few laughs with his straightman routine, but not much else.

There is a pretty fun little spot in the middle where the brothers sneak off from temple to get high, but even that feels like a missed opportunity. Perhaps it's just a matter of taste, but director Shawn Levy has never made a movie that I considered more than “okay” and this one is no exception. Even the “parting of ways” scenes at the end that are supposed to tug at your heartstrings are a complete yawn.

I have no doubt that there are some people out there that will like this film, but I will frankly state that I am not one of them. When it comes to films about families, give me “Ordinary People”, “The Royal Tenenbaums” or “The Kids Are Alright” instead – they're funnier and more dramatic, which is what I like to see in comedy-dramas.