A Scathing Review

*Note: If you don't want to know how this movie ends, don't read this.

Last night I watched the movie The Family Stone (Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Diane Keaton, Claire Danes, Craig T. Nelson, and Dermot Mulroney). I don't recommend it. The best comparison I can think of is "a bad Meet the Parents."

Not one of the characters are likeable. And Merideth (Sarah Jessica Parker) is the only character that you can remotely sympathize with. And even that is a stretch. The whole family is a rude, horrible, vulgar, dysfunctional mess.

Here is the plot in a nutshell. Dermot Mulroney's character (Everett) is dating Sarah Jessica Parker's character, and he brings her to his family's home for Christmas with the intention of getting his grandmother's wedding ring and proposing to Merideth. The family hates her, are horrible to her, and push her towards asking her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to come for moral support. Ben (Luke Wilson), Everett's brother, ends up having a thing for Merideth, and Everett ends up having a thing for Julie. To add insult to injury, you find out Diane Keaton's breast cancer has returned and she is dying.

Merideth and Everett end up breaking up, Julie ends up with Everett, and Ben ends up with Merideth. They try and redeem the movie by adding an epilogue that takes place the next Christmas. You see all the happy couples decorating a tree sans Mom, who has passed away some time that year. I know this ending was supposed to satisfy me in some way, but all I could think was these horrible characters had cheated on one another with their siblings. Yeah, there really is no redeeming that. And the mother was such a horrible woman that I had a really hard time feeling bad that she was gone. And then I felt bad that I didn't feel bad.

If you haven't seen it, don't waste your time. A Christmas classic it is not.