Watching this film was like shooting yourself in the head, having the spurting blood spell out "The Family Stone" in drippy writing, and then having to carry on living in complete agony and brain-deadness. I need to emphasise how shocked I am at the absurdly high average review rating, but I should qualify my comments with some evidence. I could probably do a minute-by-minute massacre of this film (yes, EVERY minute was worth a good napalming), but for the sake of the readers, I'll keep it brief, and in order of heinousness: 1)This film may have been sponsored by the KKK for the extent to which it manages to undermine good "liberal" qualities. The whole point of liberalism is accepting that people may have an opposing values to your own without thinking they should be hanged for holding such views. The family's unrealistically immediate hatred of Meredith and their cruel treatment of her when she has done nothing to actively offend them is totally incongruous with the pot-smoking Benetton models that formed the family. 2) Why in God's name would you want your child to be gay? Why would you actively WANT your child to be ANYTHING?? Its logically as bigoted to say that you wish for gay children as if you said you absolutely didn't want your children to be gay. You wish for happy children, regardless of their sexual orientation. 3)Sarah Jessica Parker was completely unable to break out of her Sex and the City character, which meant that when she was acting uptight, it seemed completely unbelievable. Her supposedly 'drunken' scene was some of the worst acting I've ever seen. It was like the popular girl at school being in a school play, acting drunk but not doing any of the embarrassing things (i.e. slurring, very BAD dancing) that would actually make the drunkenness realistic, for fear of looking bad. 4)Stupid formulae, which are completely condescending to the audience. e.g. At the beginning, Meredith = uptight = hair scraped back in bun...BUT at the end...Meredith = more relaxed/in love = hair loose and down 5)Horrible script trying to be like Royal Tenenbaums type of quirky but completely failing. Does any mother ever comment to a complete stranger that a certain guy has 'popped' her daughter's 'cherry' in front of said daughter? Come on. Why does laid-back Ben fall in love with Meredith - because he wants a challenge or because he dreams of 'being the snow' that Meredith shovels. Oooh how arty. Eat my shorts. 6)Meredith's sister and the fiancé are a pair of whores who think they're lives should mimic some stupid French novel where people fall in love over a schmaltzy story set in some country where people are foreign and therefore can be patronised (that would be us, viewer). And you can swoon over the fact that Meredith's sister is such a great person that she'll come to the Stone family home to comfort her completely terrorised sister - what a catch. Oh, except that she's a complete cow who takes her sister's fiancé (regardless of her three minute hesitation) and doesn't go out to see if her sister's OK when they hear her car crash in the driveway. Twice. Hmmmmm. (And her hair is far too shiny)
So disappointing...the worst film I've EVER EVER seen
So disappointing...the worst film I've EVER EVER seen