This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think

Year: 2017

Director: Rian Johnson

Cast: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Mark Hamill

Run Time: 1 hours 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Here it is, the reason I've come out of retirement. I decided to stop reviewing current movies shortly after Rogue One, but I've always had a worry gnawing at the back of my mind that that meant I wouldn't be able to weigh in on the next chapter in the Star Wars canon. Well now the veil has been lifted, and he reviewer has been loosed upon the world once more. Let's dive into it, shall we?

Cue applause.

Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi picks up more or less immediately after the events of The Force Awakens. Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on the galaxy's most absurdly gorgeous island (and the characters keep using the term"galaxy" as if that term encompasses the whole of creation, and it bothered me slightly less than in Guardians of the Galaxy, but still a lot more than it should) to solicit the help of legendary Jedi hermit Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) int he fight against the First Order and maybe learn a thing or two about this Force business in the process. Meanwhile, in a very Empire Strikes Back fashion, while Rey has a space-Buddhist adventure into the inner workings of life itself, her friends are fighting for their lives out in space.

A battle between the dwindling Resistance forces - led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher, in her final appearance as the character not played by a horrifying CGI specter) and purple-haired Vice-Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) - and a First Order fleet - led by the rogue's gallery of Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), his apprentice Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), and General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson) - has reached a brief standstill, but things aren't looking hot for the good guys.

While Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) chafes against authority due to his insatiable and potentially dangerous drive to be a hero, Stormtrooper ex-pat Finn (John Boyega) teams up with maintenance worker Rose (Kelly Marie Tran, the newest star to be scooped from obscurity to light up screens worldwide) to find a master codebreaker to help them yadda yadda science fiction words. Look, there's a ticking clock and they're trying to save the Resistance and preserve hope for the galaxy.

A whole galaxy! It's, like, really important!

What's most striking about The Last Jedi is how small-scale everything really is. We do visit some spectacular new environments (and one that's mostly just Hoth 2.0), but the bulk of the story takes place within a couple square miles, or whatever the space term is for that. That's not in and of itself a bad thing (the original Star Wars only has a couple settings it switches between), but I think the reason I felt claustrophobic is that the main battle is stuck in a holding pattern that sucks out every bit of narrative tension like an industrial vacuum. It kind of prevents any sort of real action, and all the participants are content to just kind of sit and wait for the important characters to figure things out, while sitting around discussing their differing philosophies over tea.

OK, I may have exaggerated a bit, but really not by that much, and that's probably the biggest flaw in a movie riddled with flaws. To be fair, it's also riddled with triumphs, but The Last Jedi is audacious, conceptually and visually, and that bold ambition comes with a willingness to take risks and stumble that The Force Awakens was not willing to indulge. And that's probably why the latter was a whole lot better as a popcorn spectacle when all is said and done.

The Last Jedi is full of these contradictions, which is why it has been so hard for any reviewer to wrap their head around it. It very clearly has a better director, and Rian Johnson (of Brick and Looper) delivers images of such pure, magnetic beauty that it's impossible to dislike the movie as a whole. From the set design (a Resistance bomber ship in an early scene is an impeccably crafted space with lived-in functionality) to the costume design (a new set of storm troopers that are basically blood red samurai) to the space warfare (one key moment is literally breathtaking; every process in your body will briefly stop to appreciate the sheer beauty), The Last Jedi is a sublimely accomplished visual work. But as a story, it falls apart like a ham shank left in the crock pot for too long.

Maybe I shouldn't be writing this review right before lunch.

For a movie with such a generous run time, the story fails to find room to develop most of its dramatic beats, shoehorning in scenes of grand import that weren't properly established and thus have the impact of a handful of cotton balls being thrown at your face. It doesn't help that the dialogue in these scenes is brutally clunky, and relies on aspects of the Force and Jedi lore that have never made an appearance in the film canon and frankly made no sense to begin with. Fans of the extended Star Wars mythos may find a lot to dig into here, but as someone who has never found the struggles of the Jedi and their philosophies anything but hokey, it's hard to find any emotional stakes in the proceedings.

I suppose this is just a symptom of a problem Star Wars has always had. The divide between the Dark Side and the Light is written as the malleable, porous line that can be crossed all too easily if you're not careful. But basically every one of the franchise's villains is a scarred, sneering mustache-twirler in all black, obliterating whatever shades of grey the plot wants you to imagine there might be. So whenever a character struggles with being pulled toward the dark, it's hard to see what could possibly be so tempting about it.

Seriously, who's looking at this guy and thinking, "He looks like he'd be a good boss."

Honestly, there are moments here that are just lame. In addition to what it pretty objectively objectively the most idiotic scene to ever grace a Star Wars picture (you'll know it when you f**king see it), there are a handful of sequences that exist exclusively as fanservice, and they're exhausting to suffer through.

Looking at all these flaws, I should honestly be infuriated by this movie, but I'm not. There's the trouble with The Last Jedi. What's good is so damn good, and even if more than a good half of the movie was dull and overwrought (the actual number is probably closer to 35%), it would be enough to shift the scales toward a positive score.

For one thing, the wacky humor that has secretly always been present in the Star Wars franchise is back in full force, and although anything Poe does is ripped straight from the mouth of Star-Lord and frankly doesn't work all that well, there's a sense of kiddie matinee fun that runs through the whole thing. The biggest and maybe not best example of this is the Porgs, this episode's answer to the Ewoks. They're these cute little rodents that only exist for comic relief, and I'm deeply upset by how much I loved them.

I KNOW this only exists to sell plushies, but damn it it's working.

OK, the Porgs are bound to be divisive, but they really are a sterling example of the register The Last Jedi shoots for, and  more often than not hits on the mark. For instance, BB-8 continues to be the best new character in the franchise, and his every exploit continues to bring me unending joy (He's also allowed to get a little bloodthirsty when push comes to shove, and it's rad as hell).

Another good thing (there are more than I've been letting on, because the bad things can be so loud) is Rose, an entirely charming new character who might feel more at home in a spin-off like Rogue One but really holds her own against the more established ensemble. I don't know where they plucked her from, but they need to keep returning to that well.

Plus, when The Last Jedi goes big it goes big. The action sequences are pretty stellar, and occasionally even surprisingly gory (at a "family-friendly" Indiana Jones level, not a The Prowler level, just in case you were worried), and the universe-building is as weird and charming as the franchise fans should have come to expect. 

In short, it's a water cooler popcorn movie that's definitely worth your time, even though it has some massive holes to patch up come Episode IX. This is a step down, but it's not quite a stumble. Even though with a worse director it certainly would have been. 

TL;DR: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is a beautiful, stunning popcorn adventure with some really wonky storytelling over a terribly indulgent run time.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1504

Reviews In This Series
Star Wars (Lucas, 1977)
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (Marquand, 1983)
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (Abrams, 2015)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Edwards, 2016)
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (Johnson, 2017)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (Howard, 2018)

Popcorn Kernels: Family Movie Night

In which we explore mini-reviews of movies my parents chose for me to watch.

Casablanca

Year: 1942

Director: Michael Curtiz

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid

Run Time: 1 hour 42 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

A tavern owner in Morocco discovers that his ex-love has arrived in town with her husband and he has the means to help them escape, should he choose to let her go.

Man, I don’t even wanna touch this one. Casablanca is such a minted classic, even by regular people who think Citizen Kane is boring, that I was nervous about how I would receive it when I finally buckled down and watched it for the first time. And I have a notoriously cold heart when it comes to romance films. It might just be the fact that there tends to be a gulf between me and onscreen couples in terms of both sexuality and approach (if you stand outside my window in the middle of the night with a boom box, I will throw things at you until you go away because I need my sleep, dammit), but love movies need to clear a high bar before they even have a chance of touching my icy heart.

Casablanca almost gets there. The romance thrums and thrives in the chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, but it’s far more present in the performance than its actualization. In their interplay, you get a perfect sense of a past Great love gone dark, but when they actually show flashback scenes of this supposed Great Love, frankly I’m not convinced. Perhaps it’s the toothless, Code-neutered interaction that dampens their physical attraction or the rather bland staging of their France apartment, but this romance only flourishes wen it’s dead.

But beyond that, Casablanca is, obviously, fantastic. Boasting a surprisingly funny script for a film – especially a drama – of its vintage, it’s a very layered piece that combines a patriotic wartime morality play with one man’s romantic struggles, played out over the various dives and skeevy locales of the border town Casablanca. It drops iconic lines like Liza Minnelli sheds boa feathers, which is even more remarkable considering that it was just a cookie cutter studio picture with a script being constantly rewritten as they shot it.

It’s incessantly remarkable how well this film works, and especially how well it still holds up today. Its dynamic lighting scheme forgives even its most ludicrously stagey setpieces, and the actors imbue their characters with personalities that stretch far beyond the scope of the screen. I’m going to leave it at that, because nobody needs another film blogger yammering about Casablanca, but I’m definitely glad I watched it.

Rating: 8/10

Unfaithfully Yours

Year: 1984

Director: Howard Zieff

Cast: Dudley Moore, Nastassja Kinski, Armand Assante 

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

When a famous conductor suspects his much-younger wife of cheating, he hatches a plot to murder her and her supposed lover that goes wackily awry.

The 80’s were a weird time for comedy movies. Despite an abundance of classic teen movies and high concept comic gems, there was also a massive vein of throwaway flicks to beef up video store shelves. One of these is Unfaithfully Yours, which takes a sheaf of fairly well-respected actors and applies them to a sitcom premise stretched to an unfathomable length. While Unfaithfully Yours could have been a good Halloween episode of Three’s Company, the endless padding it requires to reach feature length makes the tone of the dark comedy go haywire.

This is a movie that couldn’t be made today, at least to its exact dimensions. It leans so heavily on chauvinism and misogyny to drive its main character’s motivations that hopefully anybody in 2016 would see right through Dudley Moore like they have X-ray eyes to find the spiteful goblin he really is. It is massively unpleasant to spend time with this character, who is willing to straight-up exterminate his wife over a series of misunderstandings. This type of storyline could be played for laughs if the tone was managed properly, as it is in the opening monologue of the film, but the script seems unwilling to admit that its protagonist is a genuinely awful person.

Instead of harnessing It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s type of misanthropic comedy, Unfaithfully Yours takes a stab at Two and a Half Men by way of Alfred Hitchcock. Dudley Moore does a fine job of drawing physical humor from his character’s incompetence, but there’s only so much time I can spend with him before the film’s cheery attitude drives me to madness.

This scenario that has already run long endlessly unspools with an extended dream sequences that is then slavishly repeated in “reality.” It’s a tiresome tactic, but the really frustrating thing is that Unfaithfully Yours could have been truly great if it was a little less hammy and tipped more toward the darker, Death Becomes Her side of things.

Rating: 5/10

While We're Young

Year: 2014

Director: Noah Baumbach

Cast: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver 

Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

A bored middle-aged couple befriends a young hipster couple who give them a new lease on life, but not everything is as happy as it seems.

Don’t you just love comedy movies that don’t really have any jokes? Aren’t they just the best? Noah Baumbach certainly seems to think so. I suppose you might call While We’re Young a “dramedy,” but the drama half is so navel-gazey and the comedy half appears so infrequently that it’s just a “…” 

A too-obvious attempt at satirizing aging dreamers too afraid to commit to their goals and the self-conscious hipness of youth culture, While We’re Young undermines itself by constantly pointing out what it’s doing. Whether it’s a pointed, inauthentic echo plastered over a key dramatic line that made me laugh out loud or the endless epigraph that opens the film using practically an entire scene from a play (this also showcases Baumbach’s lack of control over his visuals), While We’re Young is so exuberantly excited to share its trite ideas that it smothers them.

It’s a shame, because when While We’re Young is funny, it can be damn hilarious. A potential investor played by Ryan Serhant is one of the best broad comedy characters in years, with the snappy line deliveries of a young man with too much confidence and too few brain cells. A lot of side characters and little moments shine here, at least justifying the “-edy” ahlf of the portmanteau after much effort. The most consistent comic element is probably Adam Driver, whose performance precisely captures the physicality of a twee, hopelessly pretentious hipster douche. Maybe the character isn’t too far form his wheelhouse, but it’s a genius bit of over-the-top nonverbal acting that goes a long way.

But other than that, While Were Young is a bit of a dud. Stiller and Watts, as the older couple, are appropriately bristly, but nobody outside of Driver and Serhant is doing standout work here. The nuggets of comedy buried in the film make slogging through the drama worth it, but I’ll be happy if I never even have to think about watching this film again.

Rating: 5/10

Word Count: 1211

I Have A Good Feeling About This

Year: 2015

Director: J. J. Abrams

Cast: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac

Run Time: 2 hours 15 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Whether or not I liked Star Wars: The Force Awakens is beside the point. The film is well on its way to making enough money to buy its own solar system, so people are clearly seeing it. The question really should be whether or not it’s good enough to deserve the record-obliterating box office it will loudly amass over the course of the next few months. That’s pretty unequivocally a no, considering that nothing short of a film directed by God himself could truly be worthy of that kind of money. But as a three decades later sequel to the single most culturally important film trilogy ever created (prequels? Never heard of ‘em.), it’s still pretty damn terrific.

As the first sequel in forward continuity since 1983, the first Star Wars not to be directed by the increasingly dubious producer/despot George Lucas since 1983, and the first appearance of Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, and Peter Mayhew (among others) in their original roles since 1983, The Force Awakens is pretty much doomed to thwart the Mount Everest of expectations riding on it. However, when compared to the likes of delayed sequels like Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Terminator: Genisys, and even Jurassic World, The Force Awakens is a magnum opus of revival cinema, nestling snugly into the universe of its own franchise and always feeling like an organic next step to the story.

Our fridges are safe from nuking.

And now, a bare bones plot summary that attempts to avoid any and all spoilers. What fun this shall be. We start with our three torch-passees, the new blood that will become the backbone of this new trilogy (plus the books, cartoons, multimedia gaming experiences, live shows, and shared universe spin-offs that Disney will inevitably wring from this property): Rey (Daisy Ridley), a tough scavenger who is awaiting her long-departed family on the desert planet Jakku; Fin (John Boyega), a mutinous storm trooper attempting to escape the clutches of the evil First Order; and Poe (Oscar Isaac, freshly shaved after Ex Machina), a Resistance pilot with a cocky attitude and an adorable droid best friend called BB-8, whose merchandise you will have pre-ordered by the time the credits roll.

For a variety of reasons, both willingly and unwillingly, they become a part of the Resistance attack on the First Order, the shadowy eeevil complex that has replaced the Empire. They will have to get past the wicked and ginger General Hux (Domhnall Glesson) and the masked Jedi Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), who are both under the thumb of Supreme Leader Snoke (mocapper extraordinaire Andy Serkis). Who will win? Will these inexperienced youngsters ever become true heroes?

Will I ever be able to pay off those BB-8 related purchases on my credit card bill?

I would like to open by saying that I’ve never been a fanboy for Star Wars. I appreciate the films for what they are, but I’m certainly no ride-or-die, midnight screening, AT-AT pronunciation debating obsessive. I in no way felt obligated to like The Force Awakens, so you can imagine my surprise when I kind of loved it. It has its share of deficiencies, and we’ll get to that, but for the time being let’s bask in the triumph of this seventh Star Wars entry easily settling into the consensus-approved third best slot in the franchise.

One of the best things about The Force Awakens is that, while it is absolutely a nostalgia trip, it remains entirely modern and individualized. It engages with the original story, characters, and technology, but it’s not a clip show. We don’t see our heroes jetting off to pick up MacGuffins on Hoth or Tatooine, and you certainly don’t see them paying a visit to the Ewoks on Endor or sifting through Trade Federation file cabinets on Naboo. Some planets might be more than a little reminiscent of previous locales, but The Force Awakens keeps its gaze firmly forward. The returning characters do have some catching up to do, but their plot lines revolve around the present consequences of their past lives, not sitting around looking at scrapbooks of the good ol’ days. That was a long time ago.

In a galaxy far, far away.

In fact, the new characters and material are frequently where the film works best. The dialogue is a little more winking and modern than some fans will appreciate, but the character dynamics they build are tremendously effective. Oscar Isaac’s Poe is easily the most charismatic star-making performance, but Ridley and Boyega miraculously hold their own in an arena a million times more epic than their entire filmographies combined, each developing meaningful relationships with old and new cast members alike.

Also, major kudos to the villain casting department. I never in my wildest peyote dreams would have suggested the douche from Girls and the wimpy ginger from Ex Machina as sneering baddies, but it undeniably works. They don’t get to flex their muscles fully here, presumably reserving the First Order’s bigger firepower for the sequels, but both get their moment in the sun, Gleeson in a deliciously terrifying more-than-a-little Nazi-esque speech, and driver in a few scenes of vulnerable intensity that even overpower the script’s tritest nuggets, all of which seem to get dumped over his lusciously-locked head. The only bum note is Andy Serkis’ Stoke, who embodies a woefully blah brand of Disney villainy.

Even Thanos must be a little embarrassed for him.

Speaking of Guardians of the Galaxy, The Force Awakens is actually extremely similar to that Marvel-Disney triumph. It makes a name for itself with colorful characters, playful dialogue, and rip-roarin’ action sequences, all of which are thickly plastered over one of the most thinly generic plots a couple hundred million dollars can buy. I mean, really? [Medium Spoilers Another, slightly larger Death Star? Color me unsurprised.] Dumb and Dumber To had a more complex throughline. Now, I’m not saying that a typical plot sinks this movie, but the story is just a heap of radio serial boilerplate and is certainly not one of the many numbers of reasons to see The Force Awakens.

Between the tissue paper-thin story structure and a couple stunted character arcs that are clearly looking to unfold in the long term but give nothing to the current film, I can confidently conclude that The Force Awakens is not a masterpiece. However, if things go well, I can completely see this as the dazzling but inferior A New Hope to Episode VIII’s triumphantly gigantic Empire Strikes Back. Obviously I don’t know what’s in store for us on that front, but this is a great film with room for huge improvement. I honestly think that’s the best place for the franchise to land at this point.

At any rate, Star Wars is back! I didn’t know it was possible, but we’ve finally returned to that grand, adventurous space opera in style. With all the grubby detail and cosmic swashbuckling of the original films, hitched on to a totally current slate of character diversity, adrenalized banter, universe expansion, and cute as hell droidsmanship, the franchise is finally back on solid ground after decades of aimlessly drifting through the inky void.

TL;DR: Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a simple but inviting story that returns to the Star Wars universe with style.
Rating: 8/10
Word Count: 1246
Reviews In This Series
Star Wars (Lucas, 1977)
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (Marquand, 1983)
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (Abrams, 2015)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (Edwards, 2016)
Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (Johnson, 2017)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (Howard, 2018)

I See You Shiva With Anticipation

Year: 2014

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda

Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

There are three types of indie movies. 1) Films which showcase a brilliant artist who is given short shrift in Hollywood for no good reason. 2) Films which showcase a dreadful artist who is given short shrift in Hollywood for a very good reason. And 3) Films that attempt to be indie and meaningful because they know that's cool now, but they're directed by the guy who did Real Steel and Cheaper by the Dozen.

Guess which category This Is Where I Leave You falls under. 

Now I'm not saying that director Shawn Levy is a terrible artist. No way no how. I'm just saying that his pedigree (which also includes The Internship and all three Night at the Museum films) in no way prepares him to treat this film's material with the delicacy that its demanding tonal shifts deserve. It would take a lot of skill to finesse the low key dramedy of Jonathan Tropper's source novel into even mildly diverting cinema, and Levy just doesn't have the practice.

Well, I guess Ben Stiller and his museum buddies are KIND of like a dysfunctional Jewish family.

This Is Where I Leave You tells the story of the Altman family, which is brought together by the death of a patriarch. His last wish was his wife and kids to sit shiva, forcing them to remain in proximity with one another for the first time in years. 

The most important member of this family (in terms of screen time, not interest) is Judd Altman (Jason Bateman), a bitter man who just discovered that his wife was cheating on him with his boss. This causes some super indie problems for him, because he has exactly followed his plan for how his life should be, but it isn't bringing him happiness. A chance encounter with Penny (Rose Byrne), an old flame, reminds him that sometimes love can be messy, especially if you're in a movie that premiered at TIFF.

The rest of his family includes Wendy (Tina Fey), who has a kid and is married to a neglectful businessman despite the fact that she's in love with a brain-damaged neighbor inexplicably named Horry (Timothy Olyphant); Paul (Corey Stoll), who is a straight-laced square failing to have a baby with his wife Annie (Kathryn Hahn); Phillip (Adam Driver), who is the baby of the family, a hopeless lothario, and a perennial screwup who somehow convinced a beautiful psychiatrist named Tracy (Connie Britton) to fall in love with him; and their mother Hillary (Jane Fonda), who just got a boob job. 

Yay! Isn't it gross when old people show interest in sex? Judd certainly seems to think so, according to the immense amount of screentime spent on him staring at his mother's chest in revulsion.

Them old broads be crazy, amirite?

It's certainly exciting to see a depiction of the interactions and customs of a Jewish family in the modern, secular world. But it would be more exciting if most of them were actually Jewish or gave half a flying Pop-Tart about the implications of their minority faith on the subtext. 

There's a smattering of funny, charming moments, largely thanks to the abundance of funny, charming actors. And the drama is handily handled (to coin a nifty phrase), especially by Fey and Bateman, who have the heaviest of burdens on their shoulders. But despite the best efforts of the cast (all of whom are genuinely enjoyable save for Driver's perplexing emphasis on shouting his lines and Byrne's hard swallowing of her natural Australian accent), This Is Where I Leave You falls flat as a pancake.

In all fairness to Rose Byrne, who I love, her character is so indie vanilla that I can't imagine what else there would be to do other than babble lines in half-cocked American. You gotta make things enjoyable for yourself.

The biggest problem with the film is that it has no idea what to do with its prodigious cast. The performers are all proven talents with mid-level star power just dripping off of them, but the plot only has the attention span for at most three protagonists. The sprawling number of celebrities in the background steals focus from the characters that we're supposed to care about, and the imbalanced plot threads prevent us from caring about them in the first place. It's a lose-lose situation. 

Basically, this film is what would have happened if, instead of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, The Skeleton Twins had cast the entire line-up of Saturday Night Live. There are so many balls being juggled here that some of them just roll away without anybody noticing.

Characters twirl in and out of existence, vanishing from this dimension until they're needed for the next forced plot point. Several of the siblings' significant others are banished to purgatory early on, only to be trotted out on special occasions. And I'm pretty sure Connie Britton's character died of neglect, locked in an upstairs closet. The only consistent presence is a potty-training toddler, who is incidentally the most compelling of the bunch.

This isn't even a third of the cast of this tiny tiny film.

Overall, This Is Where I Leave You is just too generic to be worth the hassle. There's endless heavy-handed exposition laced conversations, routine characterizations, and nothing new to say about the state of the American family. Been there, done that. There is one great sequence where the siblings repeat a series of cordial platitudes to guests at a funeral that highlights the repetitive dullness and constant lying that these types of polite gatherings require.

But beyond that, the film doesn't attempt to do anything more than exist as a piece of disposable cinema. Miss this film, and don't bother calling it on its birthday.

TL;DR: This Is Where I Leave You is dull and generic, but has a decently sized slate of charming actors.

Rating: 4/10

Word Count: 1005