A Stone Not Worth Romancing

Film: The Family Stone
Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Luke Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Claire Danes, Dermot Mulroney
Director: Thomas Bezucha

Isn’t it strange that all three English movies released this weekend haven something to do with ‘stone’? This one is Family Stone, Basic Instinct 2 has Sharon Stone and Zathura means Stone in Swahili. (Just kidding!) And at least the first two have all the feelings we associate with a stone: cold, impersonal, uninteresting. Is this the season for boredom or what?

The Family Stone follows the fortunes of a family, rather predictably, over a three-day period culminating in Christmas Day. Everett (Mulroney), the eldest of the Stone children is bringing his girlfriend Meredith (Parker) to meet his folks. The cultured Meredith does not go well with the happy-go-lucky family. Kelly (Craig T Nelson) tries to be a bit civil, but he is overpowered by his wife, Sybil (Keaton), and daughter, Amy (Rachel), who want to sink in their claws into Meredith from the word go. While elder sister Susan (Elizabeth Reaser) and deaf and gay younger brother Thad (Tyrone Giordano), tolerate her, it is left to Ben (Wilson) to make her feel a little less out of place.

The beleaguered Meredith calls for reinforcements in the form of her sister Julie (Danes). Add in Brad (Paul Schneider) who had a cherry business with Amy a long time ago, and you have a Christmas which is spelt the same way disaster is.
The basic problem with Family Stone is it straddles genres. Any movie which does that has to be extremely good to succeed. Family Stone is not. Beginning as a nice family drama, it suddenly decides to change tracks to become a screwball comedy. In between it has doses of abstract dialogue that will go above the heads of its designated audience. Director Thomas Bezucha’s script tries to be funny, sad, poignant and half a dozen other things and ends up being nothing.

It is unfortunate that a film such as this should have such a well-known cast. Sarah Jessica Parker does not have to try too hard to be the annoying Meredith. Neither does Claire Danes, but she hardly has any screen time. Dermot Mulroney and Luke Wilson act cute and that’s about it. Veterans Diane Keaton and Craig T Nelson are efficient as always. The very-much-in-the-news Rachel McAdams has the best role and she is a delight.

Family Stone would have been a decent feel-good Christmas film if it wanted to. Or it could have been an all-out screwball romp. Too bad it tries to be everything. This is stale fare. As cold and uninteresting as a stone.