Claire Scanlon (Director) Grant Ginder (Novel)

CAST
Allison Janney
Ben Platt
Cynthia Addai-Robinson
Kristen Bell
Isaach De Bankolé
Karan Soni

Premise: Family tensions ramp up among siblings in the week leading up to their half-sister’s wedding in the country.

Review: This movie is ridiculous, a little over the top but fun. It’s an enjoyable comedy about a dysfunctional family, the dynamic between each member was awkward and funny at times. The ensemble cast has a lot of good actors in it, Janney is great as the mom trying to keep her family together, Bell is amazing at being the trashy sister who can’t seem to make good choices, and Platt’s character has to deal with his own relationship drama and complicated feeling about his mom, and Robinson is great as the seemingly standoff-ish half-sister yearning to reconnect with the rest of the family.
However, as much as I smiled and chuckled, the farcical aspect of the film kind of brought it down for me. There are solid ideas in this film that could have made it a great comedy with poignant dramatic moments, but they pushed the comedy too hard and jumped into Jackass territory and kind of made the movie look like a mess. Platt’s and Bell’s characters were toeing the line between insufferable and hilarious, maybe that was the point since they’re supposed to be the people we hate at the wedding, yet I still feel like this could have been executed better.

All that said they did feel like a family to me, the mess and all, it’s just that some things were a little too heightened, it’s as if they lost control of the movie or gave up at some point.

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