A good Christmas movie is hard to make. First off it needs to feel original and that's pretty hard when there are already hundreds of them. It seems Lifetime and the Hallmark channel churn out a new Christmas drama every week. Also the film must find the right balance of drama and comedy. It needs to be sentimental without being sugary sweet. It needs to have the right amount of pathos without being morbid. The whimsy can't be forced and a Christmas romance needs to have the right chemistry.
The Family Stone falls short of all these marks. The movie stars Dermot Mulroney as Everett Stone. He is bringing his girlfriend Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) home for the holidays. Meredith is a tightly wound, "type A" personality, in contrast to the more relaxed free-wheeling Stone family. Diane Keaton is mom and Craig T. Nelson is dad. Rachel McAdam's is Amy, Everett's sister. She has already met Meredith in NYC and took an instant dislike to her. The rest of the family consist of Elizabeth Reaser as Everett's other sister, Luke Wilson as his brother Ben and Tyrone Giordano as brother Thad. Thad is both deaf and gay and has a long time partner, Patrick, who happens to be African-American (Patrick Thomas). these two serve to show how progressive, liberal and accepting the family is compared to Meredith's more conservative, upper class upbringing.
Meredith's welcome is not a warm one and that sets the tone of the movie off kilter right away. It just seems wrong that a family would behave this way from the moment they meets someone. Sarah Jessica Parker does a good job with the character she is given, but the script pushes her into situations that just seemed forced. The first 30 minutes feel like a contrived plot in order to get Meredith's sister Julie (Claire Danes) into the story. The film picks up in the second act as all the characters become "normal". Family secrets are revealed and romances become cross. This leads to a dramatic third act on Christmas morning that shifts the films tone again into madcap comedy. The final epilogue does touch a heart string, but it's too little too late.
Writer / Director Thomas Bezucha struggles to find the right balance while the cast gamely works there way through the material. Some very strong performances but not enough to save The Family Stone from becoming nothing more than an all-star Lifetime movie.
At The Movie House rating ** stars
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