With a star-studded ensemble cast featuring Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Jason Bateman, Connie Britton, Rose Byrne and Adam Driver, it’s a shame This is Where I Leave You isn’t a better film. Perhaps most surprising is that this cast of hard-hitting comedians produces so few laughs, most of them revolving around a recent breast enhancement and a toddler’s bathroom habits. Adapted from Jonathan Tropper’s best-selling novel of the same name, the mix of comedy and drama never quite gels.
Although enjoyable enough, the film is more than a little formulaic (anyone remember August: Osage County?) and carries a whiff of sitcom about it: The Altman family patriarch passes away, resulting in his four grown, yet still bickering, children to return home to sit shiva for him. Each brings along enough baggage—divorce, fertility issues, unhappy marriages, immaturity—to fuel the movie’s plot, but no character rises much above a cliché, perhaps with the exception of Driver’s Philip, the classic family screw-up. He steals nearly every scene he’s in, and it’s not a stretch to see how the older, sophisticated character played by Connie Britton ends up falling for him.
Should You See It? It’s worth a rental. —S.Z.
Viewed at Chase Park Plaza Cinemas