Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, and Rachel McAdams lead an all-star cast in The Family Stone. Join the eccentric Stone family for a holiday gathering filled with unexpected surprises. Before the festivities are over, love affairs will unravel, new ones will form, outrageous secrets will be revealed and the family will come together like never before.
For anyone who views holiday gatherings with equal parts joy and dread, The Family Stone offers plenty of comedy to identify with. Writer-director Thomas Bezucha's slapstick premise begins when Everett (Dermot Mulroney) brings his fiancé Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) home to meet his family for Christmas. It's an instant disaster when parents Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) agree with their gay, deaf son Thad (Ty Giordano, who is actually hearing impaired), pot-smoking son Ben (Luke Wilson) and daughters Amy (Rachel McAdams) and Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) that Meredith is way too uptight to be welcomed into their family. Meredith recruits her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to help her thaw the Stone family cold front, and after building a solid emotional foundation for his holiday comedy, Bezucha starts to stack the deck with plot developments that, while heartwarming, border on the absurd. You either go with the movie's flow or you don't, and with this appealing cast (featuring some really nice work by Keaton, Nelson, Parker and Danes) it's easy to forgive Bezucha's unlikely blend of yuletide cheer, petty animosities, and romantic tables turned in the blink of an eye. Toss in a case of terminal illness and you've got a sad-happy tearjerker that works in spite of itself. If you don't recognize at least part of your own holiday clan in The Family Stone, you probably haven't been paying attention. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
middleaged baby boomers behaving worse than kids:
This tries to be a comedy and it is if you are able to laugh at an elderly mother (Diane Keaton) spouting filthy language. The plot features a man bringing his fiance home for Christmas to meet the family. The sad part is the people are all middleaged, but behave worse than kids. The groom to be's brother falls in love with the fiance after observing her drunk and dirty dancing. His receding hairline reminds us he is too old for this nonsense. Next the groom to be falls in love with his fiance's sister. One... more info
Worst movie I've recently seen till the bitter end...:
My habit as of late has been to give a film at least 15 to 20 minutes before I either watch the entire thing, or just give up. Having a continuing stream of already seen or unseen on-demand digital choices, I try to the best of my abilities to keep up with films of a general genre, which I might be interested in. This eliminates a lot of genres actually, as I can't stand, in no particular order, horror/slasher films, "masterpiece theater-ish, British soap-operish" borefests, most heavily/quickly subtitled... more info
Excellent addition to the Christmas Movie Collection:
This movie is the perfect sweet, but not syrupy, holiday comedy. If you're looking for profound cinema, please look in a different category, but if you're looking for a fresh addition to your list of Christmas classics that you will enjoy watching over, and over, and over again, then THIS is an excellent choice!
Christmas Time Movie:
This movie is about all the different struggles and misunderstandings that families have with different themes going at the same time, all important. But, love wins out and in the end everyone is happy. It's just a touching, heart-warming movie with a great cast of actors and actresses.
