Why I Want to Blow Up the Entire Family Stone and Their Picturesque New England Home

I realize that this movie is old and that anyone that wanted to go see it in the theater has probably already done so...my only hope is that I can influence at least one person to save their Netflicks pick, $3.99 at Blockbuster or $1.00 at the budget theater by encouraging them NOT to see The Family Stone under any circumstances.

Sarah Jessica Parker plays an annoying, stuffed-shirt hyper-exec and the wardrobe people working on this film chose to show this in the most exaggerated and obvious way possible. I'd guess that the creative meeting went something like this:

[Creative fuckwit #1] SJP is going to be the character we have a hard time with at first, but we need an easy, pedantic way to show her "loosening up" as the movie goes on...
[Creative fuckwit #2] I've got it! Let's dress her in nothing but grey suits for the first 2/3rds of the movie...regardless of the setting, the weather or how obviously inappropriate it would be, then get her drunk and make her wear her shirt in a disheveled manner.
[Creative fuckwit #1] OOOH...we can put her hair in a bun the whole time too! At the end, we'll make sure everyone understands the enormous emotional journey she has undertaken by putting her in a purple sweater and jeans...with her hair down. We're fucking geniuses.

So maybe the conversation didn't go like that, but that's certainly how they showed character growth in this craptacular movie. SJP goes to New England to meet her boyfriend's family at Christmas. No pressure there. He wants to marry her and plans on asking for dead Grandma's ring to make it official. The Stone Family hates her, so she tries harder. They hate her more, so she tries even harder. Then she makes some very, very un-smooth comments at Christmas dinner along the lines of "No one hopes for a gay son...I'm sure everyone just wants their kids to be normal." I haven't mentioned yet that the Stone brood includes a gay son, a deaf son, a son in an interracial relationship and one in the process of adopting a baby. How could any family so deftly hit upon so many societal touchpoints? Easy...make one character that is gay, deaf, in an interracial relationship AND in the process of adopting a baby. God I hate this movie.

So after managing to enrage everyone in the family, she calls her sister to come and console her. The boyfriend is still dead-set on marrying SJP regardless of what a bad idea that is. The other brother (Luke Wilson) takes her out to your prototypical dive bar to get her drunk and "loosen her up." The sister (Claire Danes) shows up and hits it off with the boyfriend/wannabe fiance...who then tries to hump her, which she denies. There are plenty of touching walks in the snow while the characters contemplate their miserable existences, then yet another touching moment at a bus station...in the snow. Will Claire Danes return the love her sister's almost-fiance has just expressed, or will she bolt? I'll save you the suspense...she gets the fuck outta town, y'all.

Of course, she doesn't stay away and ultimately the sisters and brothers in this movie pull a big love switcheroo, all in the span of about 3 days. Did I tell you that there's a wacky slapstick chase around the house set to the same exact music every holiday movie ever has used to illustrate a wacky slapstick chase? I also forgot to mention that the Mom has cancer. That's right...this movie, which was billed as a lighthearted family romp about acceptance and finding your true path in life also has the "dying of cancer" angle. These producers had it ALL covered. To top off this terrible, terrible waste of celluloid the hard-assed sister (Rachel McAdams) you've grown to despise over the course of the movie is redeemed at the end of the film by a gift... a snowglobe. Seriously, the chick goes weak in the knees for the most cliched movie gift of all time. What a fucking amateur.

Though I was begging for the movie to end there, it didn't. Viewers are instead treated to a flash forward to next Christmas, from which we are to believe that the love switcheroo of 2005 was actually successful and not at all awkward. Right. We also learn that Mom has now died of cancer. They try to sledgehammer home the point that good ol' Mom was (and still is) the glue keeping this wacky ensemble together, but honestly she was a pretty miserable human being throughout the film so you don't really care that she's dead. Overall, the movie is uneven and can't make up it's mind whether it's a drama or a comedy. It also relies on tired cliches and preposterous plot devices to make it's points. If you are me, you leave the film sincerely hoping faulty Christmas lights incinerate the entire Stone family in their sleep.