I’m told that the novel this movie was based on is hilarious. I took the liberty of looking up the 2009 New York Times review, in which critic Janet Maslin called it “smartly comic.” Some of that carries over to the film adaptation, but mostly when I was watching it, I kept thinking “This would be better as a book.”

This Is Where I Leave You is a movie that comes tantalizingly close to being good, but ultimately winds up just being OK. The bulk of the story deals with the four Altman siblings—Judd (Jason Bateman), Wendy (Tina Fey), Paul (Corey Stoll), and Phillip (Adam Driver)—as they return home in the wake of their father’s death. Now, you look at a cast like that, which is rounded out by the addition of Jane Fonda as the mother of the family, and Kathryn Hahn, Timothy Olyphant, Dax Shepherd, and Rose Byrne in supporting roles, and give them a premise like that, and what you’d imagine—what I’d imagine, at least—is a witty, heartfelt, observant ensemble movie. And at times that’s exactly what This Is Where I Leave You feels like, but it can’t hold onto it.

I think the main problem has to do with the fact that, rather than being truly an ensemble piece, the movie begins with Jason Bateman’s character, Judd, and follows his thread the most closely throughout. As the film opens, Judd appears to be a successful radio producer with a good life, but that gets upended when he walks in on his wife having sex with his boss. That this is shortly followed by the news that his father has died seems a bit piled on, but perhaps not unworkably so. No, the problem for me is that I’ve just seen too many movies about sad dudes who have to overcome some personal or emotional obstacle, mostly with the help of some Manic Pixie Dream Girl. That kind of story felt fresh when I was 25. At 35, I want to see something different. (At one point while watching this movie, I wondered aloud whether there were even any interesting stories left to tell about men. Perhaps that’s taking things a bit far, but certainly the shine has come off of this particular story.)

Still, if the main plotline fell flat for me, This Is Where I Leave You does get some things right, mainly in its portrayal of the Altmans as a family. There are little sprinkles of insight and realness here and there, bits of amicable dysfunction and the closeness that can only come from a shared history, which rang true to me. There are ways that, for many of us, family brings out both the best and worst of ourselves, and this movie understands that, and shows it in a way that doesn’t feel contrived or heavy-handed. Or, rather, it doesn’t feel any more heavy-handed than real families can be.

Still, those moments of connection only serve to make me all the more frustrated that the whole thing is so mediocre. And that’s especially true given the collective talent of the cast. I can’t say that this is really a bad movie, but it’s not one that I’m going to be coming back to often.

Viewed: 1/17/2015 | Released: 9/19/2014 | Score: C+

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