"We Shoulda Stayed in Munich"

I went to see The Family Stone tonight with my friend Dennis. The trailers preceding it were surprisingly intense for a light holiday comedy -- Harrison Ford robbing the bank he worked for to prevent his family from being killed, Julianne Moore as a mother in distress yet again. In the midst of these previews, Dennis slipped out to go to the men's room and came back to tell me we were in the wrong theater -- Munich was showing in this one.

The Family Stone has some good performances -- almost everyone, in fact, from Sarah Jessica Parker to Craig T. Nelson (even though, as Washington Post film critic Stephen Hunter rightly pointed out in his review, Nelson is a "TV guy" not in the same stratosphere as his on-screen wife, movie "royalty" Diane Keaton: "And you cannot marry a movie queen to a TV guy"). But in the end it's a pretty dreadful movie. Full of contrivances, manipulations, gross implausibilities, undeveloped relationships, and sap sap sap. Quoth Dennis: "We shoulda stayed in Munich."

And I shoulda listened to Stephen Hunter.

A far better movie I saw in the last week was The Squid and the Whale, with Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels. Excellent all around, even as much of it made me uncomfortable. But it wasn't an unintended or inappropriate discomfort. The movie is about a family acting stupid and loving and embarrassing and occasionally intelligent and, time after time, with squirm-inducing disregard for boundaries. But unlike The Family Stone -- in which all of the above characterizations also apply at various moments -- The Squid and the Whale is extremely funny, astute, and real.