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Friday, December 16, 2005
Christmas is off to a rocky start with 'The Stone Family'
In place of the dysfunctional family Christmas story we've come to expect for the holidays, "The Family Stone" gives us a cheerfully uncensored, generic counterculture clan and tosses a tightly wound control freak into the center of their holiday celebration.
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View all photosMeredith (Sarah Jessica Parker), the cartoonishly inhibited fiancee of prodigal son Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney), is a slow-moving target for the mischievous brood. The slyly playful mom (Diane Keaton), utterly disapproving of the emotionally strait-jacketed Meredith, scratches at the edges of her self-esteem and devilish little sister (Rachel McAdams) goes in for the kill.
Meredith makes it easy for them. She doesn't just stick her foot in her mouth, she kicks out an entire jig of insensitive missteps at dinner. It's up to perpetually blissed-out brother Ben (an engaging and affable Luke Wilson) to ease her down and mellow her out. But that was inevitable, given their starry-eyed looks when they first meet.
There's a lot of love at first sight tossed in with the family melodrama (there's an ailing parent), fish-out-of-water comedy and emotionally crossed wires. You'll have no problem predicting any of it, even before Meredith's little sister (Claire Danes) steps off the bus and into certain romance.
It's up to the genial family chemistry to provide the film's minor charms. Writer and director Thomas Bezucha gives the good-natured razzing and ricocheting remarks the feeling of shared history, and the actors seem more relaxed and natural as they bounce off one another.
They provide pleasant enough company, but it's a bit like playing charades with the same titles over and over. Each player offers a slightly different approach but the clues all end up at the same stock answers.
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