Who is going to go see This Is Where I Leave You with me? It’s kind of hard to know who to take. I mean, this is not The Hunger Games where the companion had to be carefully thought through and it’s not Pitch Perfect where basically, seeing the movie with me became the prize because I was so delighted with the whole enterprise that I squealed and giggled and chortled and basically it was like those YouTube clips where laughing babies make you laugh.
But for this one, I’m not totally sure. I loved this book, and Lainey loved this book, and my sister too – and I mention my sister because this is what it’s about. The acknowledgement that, as Douglas Coupland would say, “All Families Are Psychotic”? Well, it was a truth I thought was universally understood.
But what if I go see this movie with a friend and at the end I’m like “Man, all families, right?” and that friend just goes “Um, I thought they were upsetting and ridiculous”. It happens. I don’t know why, but there are people who insist on having functional families, and then they infiltrate into my world and it just shocks me.
I could take my husband, but he always wants to see trailers to movies. And if I show him this trailer, he’ll be like “What, they couldn’t have scored it to Salisbury Hill?” I would punch him in the shoulder but he would be right. This book is written as a wry, laugh-cause-you’re-crying look at how crazy families can be, and how we all kind of share the blame for that, like at some point the sins of the father become your own, and you can’t blame your parents anymore. But the trailer…
…The trailer stops just shy of hugging and learning. Right? Am I crazy or is it just the music? Jonathan Tropper wrote both the book and the screenplay, so I’m sure that it’s going to be what it was supposed to be. Even if Tina Fey is already funnier than the Wendy I remember from the book. But…really, this music? And while I’m at it, those particular boobs on Fonda?
Then I think maybe if you come from a family that size that everything is always scored with that kind of music, like really dark and depressing stuff is for two kids and fewer – the scourge of the nuclear family come home to roost. Maybe I need to go with my sister and stew in the fact that we don’t have brothers to bring levity to proceedings.
But it goes without saying that I’m going. Even with the music. Even with the kind of hilarious knowledge that Jason Bateman is officially the poster child for disillusionment at 40(…something). Even with Tina Fey’s long hair.
See you there. I might be alone.
