This Is Where I Leave You
Director: Shawn Levy
Year Released: 2014
Rating: 1.0
Following the death of his father, Judd (Jason Bateman) - along with two brothers (Adam Driver and Corey Stoll) and a sister (Tina Fey) - honor an agreement to stay in the house ('sitting shiva') with their mother (Jane Fonda): of course, this is really Screenwriting 101 code for All Past Grievances and Problems Will Get Sufficiently Dealt With In a Reasonable Manner of Time. Bateman has a fling with an old flame (Rose Byrne), Fey has a fling with an old flame (Timothy Olyphant, with brain damage), baby-mad Kathryn Hahn attempts to have a fling with Bateman (he has good sperm), Fonda turns lesbian (it's the thing to do!), Bateman ends up being a father after all (with his cheating wife) and Driver's care-free cad ... well, he never had any worries to begin with. This throw-away picture reeks of cheap pathos and manufactured 'heart-to-heart' conversations when it's not going for puerile humor (oh wow, a Rabbi used to be called "Boner"): only Olyphant's damaged soul is redeemable ... because if he had his full faculties he would have run from these constructs as soon as humanly possible.
