What happens when you take the director of Night at the Museum and Cheaper by the Dozen and give him an ultra-talented cast and a mediocre script? In the case of This Is Where I Leave You, you get a mediocre drama/comedy with a couple of special moments.
Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Kathryn Hahn and Dax Sheppard read like the perfect mix of indie and mainstream comedy. Throw in Jane Fonda and Timothy Olyphant to anchor, and this could have been a terrific indie comedy. Instead, the made-in-heaven cast was wasted on extended jokes about a boob job, a character whose nickname is “boner” but doesn’t like it, and a “surprise” lesbian love affair.
In some ways, it might just be the subject matter that feels overplayed. A highly dysfunctional family comes together under one roof for several days. Chaos, hi-jinks, and eventual emotional catharsis ensue. While there is plenty of room within that framework for originality, this movie plays it awfully safe in most moments. Three of its stars have been in truly boundary-pushing comedies – Bateman in Arrested Development, Fey’s 30 Rock, and Driver on Girls. I would’ve loved to see a movie even half as bold as any of those shows.
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The main point this movie wants to make, especially in Bateman’s story, is that life is complicated, and that’s okay. Tina Fey’s character convicts him about halfway through, saying, “You don’t do complicated.” He has always had his life planned out, playing it safe, until it comes crashing down. He admits that he never takes risks or adventures and realizes he might actually be missing out on most of what makes life “real” by pretending like life is manageable and predictable.
This is a message I can get behind, though there are far superior films with this message at its core. (Stranger Than Fiction, 500 Days of Summer, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty come to mind.) If I’ve learned anything studying theology, it’s that everything is actually complicated. We can be so quick to give easy answers, as if talking about a God that is beyond our understanding should be easy. No matter how much we pretend that it’s not, the Bible is really complicated. Human sexuality is complicated. Love is complicated. Salvation is complicated. I grew up hearing that salvation was as simple as A-B-C (admit, believe, confess,) but where has that really got us? Ironically enough, when it came to talking about the most important things, Jesus made it rather uncomplicated. Love God, love your neighbor. Everything hangs on these two commands.
In this film, many characters have other goals and questions in mind, but are reminded that if two people love each other, they’ve already accomplished the hardest thing in the world. While I wish it had been a better movie, This Is Where I Leave You lives in the tension of “life is complicated” and “all you need is love”, a beautiful, complex, simple tension I think we could all stand to embrace a little more.
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