(USA, 104 min.)
Dir. Shawn Levy, Writ. Jonathan Tropper
Starring: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver,
Corey Stoll, Rose Byrne, Connie Britton, Kathryn Hahn, Timothy Olyphant,
Abigail Spencer.
Imagine August: Osage County
without the catfish, plate-smashing, incest, pill-popping and dramatic oomph,
and one might imagine a film like This is
Where I Leave You. This is Where I
Leave You brings to the screen another dysfunctional family mourning the
death of its patriarch, and like August: Osage County, it features a darn fine cast colliding in comedic moments of
familial chaos. Both August: Osage County
and This is Where I Leave You see the
authors of their popular source material adapt their own beloved works for the
screen, but the latter unfortunately just doesn’t translate as well to the
cinema as sharply as the former does.