Saw 2 may have the title for most creative use of dead fingers in a one-sheet, but The Family Stone takes the prize for a living one.
The Family Stone looks to be some kind of quirky combination of Meet the Parents and While You Were Sleeping, only with more prat falls and less Robert DeNiro trying to act humorously intimidating. This time around its Diane Keaton and Rachel McAdams who are the antagonising family members. When Dermot Mulroney, playing the only straight laced member of the Stone clan, brings home his hair-in-a-bun girlfriend (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) for the holidays the free spirited family clashes over her uptight ways. Craig T. Nelson returns to his comfort zone playing the family father figure and Luke Wilson is the affable, laughable and interfering brother. Claire Danes steps in as Parker's sister who comes to her rescue when the family holiday begins to melt down.
The trailer looks like your traditional family-clashing, holiday-humor flick, only slightly veering from the formula by incorporating low level physical violence into the family dynamic. Thank goodness. I'd like to think my family isn't the only one whose siblings still slap each other in the back of head even though we're all adults...sort of. There's something exciting about this movie that intrigues me more than holiday family comedies like Surviving Christmas. Maybe it's Sarah Jessica Parker playing the total opposite of her "Sex In The City" character, or Rachel McAdam's gorgeously sardonic wit. Perhaps its just the pleasant absence of anyone named Ben (Stiller, Affleck...take your pick).
Check out the trailer at the link below or visit the bare-as-bones official website. The Family Stone comes to a theater near you this holiday season, or November 4...whichever comes first.
