This Is Where I Leave You

Mort Altman’s death brings together the family, which means his four children are forced to be together for seven days of the ‘Shiva’. With their forthright mother overseeing the event the three brothers and sister and their wives, husbands, girlfriends and exes are forced to confront their fractured past, confused present and scary future. Can the Altman’s find redemption, peace and reconcile with each other or will the seven days of Shiva prove too much?

It was a pleasant change to watch a film truly about adult themes that presents the family unit as dysfunctional but with the dysfunction not McGuffin to drive forward the story. Any film is only as good as the actors taking part and it was nice to see Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Corey Stoll and Adam Driver all have a piece of centre stage whilst being ‘quarterbacked’ by veteran Jane Fonda. The comedy as funny whilst staying in the confines of reality and the poignant moments, whilst maybe overly reliant on mood-music, were not too tacky or sentimental. Characters seemed to behave in a realistic manner [within the confines of a film] and you did care about what happened to them.

Special mention must go to Adam Driver who gives an almost pitch perfect performance as the youngest and most irresponsible sibling, Phillip, in another lest capable actor’s hands this would easily be the wacky brother, but with Driver we has a fleshed out and lovable, if annoying, dipstick that we all have known in our lives. Driver, I’ll admit was not on my radar, until I recently saw the new Star Wars film and after that the disappointing Daniel Radcliffe vehicle, What If, but he seems to have good future in the film industry ahead of him.
I felt only Rose Byrne was given the short-straw in the role of Judd’s [Bateman] love interest Penny. This character being the most cookie-cutter convenient ‘ex’ that always seem to appear in these type of films, even though there was nothing wrong in the performance, it was definitely a bit jarring when compared to the rest of the film, surprisingly, for me, Fey’s ex-love-interest ‘Horry’, played by Tim Olyphant, was just about onside.

Love and resentment where never far from the surface throughout the running time and this hugely enjoyable film was skilfully directed by Levy so that the very ‘filmatic’ themes did not slip into farce or soap-opera melodrama. Also a cynical film viewer like me was taken by surprise at the one of the reveals at the ending. I really don’t think it was a distraction that the family where white, wealthy and middle-class, these people do exist and although I’m sure the problems some families have in real life are not quite as much ‘fun’ or seemingly ‘mainly resolved’ in seven days, it was still an enjoyable jaunt through the foibles and peccadillos of a peculiar, but ultimately likeable, set of people.

Like any family ‘This Is Where I Leave You’ was not perfect and had good moments and bad moments, of course we know that people do not come up with the perfect soundbites and reposts in awkward situations in real life but who wants to watch people staring at their feet, looking embarrassed and mumbling? The cast is uniformly great but I am biased as I have always enjoyed Jason Bateman and Tina Fey in shows and films, even when said shows and films are maybe ‘patchy’ to say the least, but in this film they are given some dramatic and heartfelt moments that are driven by serious drama rather than frothy loveliness and I think it proves that so far in their careers they have been underestimated and underused.

No CGI, no explosions and no ending wrapped up neatly in a bow, an adult film if you like.