The plot is simple. There is a family, the Joneses, that isn’t really a family but a group of stealth sales people that portray the All-American suburban family with 2 kids. They are strategically placed within upper income neighborhoods to show off new products from furniture to food to cars. Literally everything you see them wearing, driving, eating or sitting on is a living advertisement. It actually is an ingenious way of advertising. Instead of selling individual products they are selling a lifestyle and the products are really just a means to an end. This leaves their neighbors and the kids at school keeping up with the Joneses and our movie’s title. So that’s the basis of the story.
David Duchovny and Demi Moore play the parents Kate and Steve, and Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth play the kids, well not really kids they are of high school age Jenn and Mick. Gary Cole and Glenne Headly are the next-door neighbors Larry and Summer, and they ultimately become that train wreck mentioned earlier. The cast couldn’t have been any better. David Duchovny and Demi Moore have this chemistry that is perfect for the roles. David is supposed to be the down to earth newbie with morals and Demi the hard-nosed businesswomen who won’t let anything stop her from advancing in her career except for the fact that they are falling in love, and they portray this perfectly. Again, I can’t say enough about how well each actor portrays their character. It makes for a very easy watch that has some real replay value.
The backdrop feels like a lazy fall weekend. With the shots either being at the country club or in a really nice suburban home it drives home the upper income aspect. The sun too has an affect. Almost the entire film was shot in Georgia during daylight and the sun there has a warm softness to it that really backs up the lazy fall weekend feel. The film has a comfortable feel to it.
It’s also very smart. One of the best parts about the film is Larry’s wife Summer is striving to be this great salesperson selling cosmetics throughout the film all the while the Joneses are salespeople. I think that was to show the viewer how good salespeople the Joneses were and how unaware their target market is about them. The demise of Larry is subtle and the film does a great job of showing the levels of how entrenched he becomes in materialism. That is of course what the whole movie is designed for. It’s to show how materialism ruins lives and as bad as it sounds I loved watching it. Also, it was interesting to see how the characters distinguished between their real lives and fake ones as part of the nuclear family. I won’t give any spoilers, but I will say that there are some surprises.
The movie delivers, however, the features don’t. The features are only two deleted scenes. One is the interview of David Duchovny’s character Steve, which you do see a little in the movie at the point where Demi starts to realize she is falling in love. The second deleted scene is what happens to Steve after the movie ends. So pretty bland in the features department.
With this film you get two for the price of one. You get the romantic comedy with witty characters in an upper class backdrop not much different than most romantic comedies. However, dig a little deeper and it’s a satire of American consumerism and the almost always-disastrous impact that it has on its victims.
