Official Synopsis
When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.
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I see where this movie was going from the beginning and ultimately where director Shawn Levy wanted to take it, but the intersecting storylines between our pivotal characters never really meshed well and what comes out of this film is more about comedy bits sprinkled with a dash of drama.
The movie begins as our main character, Judd (Jason Bateman), finds his wife, Quinn (Abigail Spencer), in bed with his boss. Emotionally wrecked, Judd retreats only to have more tragedy strike his life with the death of his father. He is ordered by his mom (Jane Fonda) and his sister Wendy (Tina Fey) to come home for the funeral, which he does. The funeral happens and Judd’s family finds out that their father’s last wishes included a seven day shiva, which finds them together under one roof.
The opening act is brilliant, but predictable (not a bad thing). As Judd and his family slowly introduce themselves through slivers of comedic moments, you see each different personality trying to handle the shiva their own way. The shiva acts as a window into their problems. Wendy’s hard-nosed marriage is staying alive thanks to her efforts. Phillip’s (Adam Driver) immature ways are struggling to survive within his adult body, thanks in part to his older lady-friend Tracy (Connie Britton). Paul (Corey Stoll) is struggling with his business, as well as trying to conceive with his wife. Hillary is doing her best to keep everyone in line, while dealing with her own internal issues. On top of this, the neighbors across the street are very much connected with the situation, especially Horry (Timothy Olyphant), whom is dealing day-to-day with a traumatic brain injury that was indirectly caused by one of the kids (not saying who).
Anyway, this set up and the storylines that come with each character shows a common dysfunction and internal struggles each person is having, yet not disclosing to their family. It’s a fascinating array of issue, but these issues is where the movie runs into trouble.
While the delivery from each actor/character is absolutely sincere, the intersecting and connection each should be showing to each other is missing the mark. The bonds are almost insincere and while that might be the point, the ending of the film says it wanted something else from the characters. The story, especially in act two, really never finds its footing. Judd doesn’t really do a great job of concluding with his wife, nor does he do a good job with handling a love affair with his high school friend Penny (Rose Byrne), who doesn’t really get her story told, rather only implied. Driver’s Phillip never really blooms as the kid who never grew up, nor does the full story of Paul ever come to fruition. The only characters that really show themselves, and this might be more credit to the actor, is Tina Fey’s Wendy and Jane Fonda’s Hillary. Both characters give their purpose and intent to help the story along and both do a tremendous job delivering those things. They also both deliver a conclusion to their situation, regardless if it’s happy or not.
Anyway, back to act two, the characters have clashing moments that spin their overall story a bit out of control. That pattern is expected in the movie, but how they bring it all back together in act three is a bit messy. The writers seemed to have cast their line out way too far and got hooked in tree branches with no real way to pull it all back together. The messy second act caused this and their isn’t enough time in the third act to bring it all back together — even in a dysfunctional form — to something competent and acceptable. Judd’s story concludes decently, though there are some questions left that never get answered. Phillip’s story gives no hope in it’s conclusion, nor do we get a sense that Paul is going to be okay. It’s all quite messy and just feels a bit unanswered for the most part.
Having said that, when the final moment of the movie hits, it’s pretty darn effective and shocking. Although, it doesn’t necessarily relate back to anyone else except one character. I don’t want to give it away, but the moment is worth the trouble of getting through act two.
Overall, This is Where I Leave You has its moments. These characters are set up well, though I would have preferred a little bit more development from each. There’s a lot here in this dysfunctional family to get through, and the final product shows that maybe the writers were a tad lost when bringing it all back to one place. It is worth your time because of the comedy delivered and it does have some endearing moments to make you think a bit, but the film as a whole needed some more refining and possibly some more rewrites.
As for the Blu-ray portion of this release, it’s damn good. Warner Home Video usually does a smashing job of putting together a solid film to HD transfer and this is just another example of that. The movie focuses on a heavy amount of gray, black and white. It does have some blue and red tint to it, but regardless all the colors shine through beautifully in HD. There isn’t any issues with graininess or artifacts, nor are there compression or color banding issues. The transfer is as good as you would expect from WHV. Another excellent job by them.
On the audio side of things, you get this coming at you in DTS-HD 5.1 as well as a film aspect ratio of 2.4:1.
On the special features side of the tracks, here’s what you should expect:
· Deleted and Extended Scenes
· The Narrative Voice: A Discussion with Shawn Levy and Jonathan Tropper
· The Narrative Voice: A Commentary with Shawn Levy and Jonathan Tropper
· The Gospel According to Rabbi Boner
· Points of Departure
This is a solid set of features for a release like this. You get a ton of extras that help to unveil the intentions of the film, plus you get some good stuff with the deleted and extended scenes (the Rabbi Boner feature is hilarious). Anyway, good stuff that adds value to the overall release.
