One of the things that I will definitely check out whenever I'm traveling is definitely what movies are currently playing in the local cinemas. So now in Taipei I was happy to discover that This Is Where I Leave You is still playing.
A stellar cast with above average performances but an underwhewlming movie as a whole.
When you have Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Kathryn Hahn, Rose Byrne, Timothy Olyphant, and Jane Fonda; you must have a damn good script, or a damn good salesperson pitching it.
And when your other, lesser-known cast members are made up of Corey Stoll (who will next be seen in Marvel's Ant-Man), Adam Driver (who will next be seen in Star Wars Episode VII), Dax Shepard (even if you don't know him you would have seen him in a lot of things), and Connie Britton (who has and is still doing some great work on TV); the expectations from the audience would naturally be sky high.
Why the movie didn't do better was no fault of the actors, who didn't necessarily stood out (though I thought Driver had some great moments) but didn't just phone it in either.
Could director Shawn Levy do better with this dramedy? Maybe, though there wasn't anything in particular that I didn't like about the movie. For what it was worth, I thought it was real, charming, funny and wrapped up nicely in the end.
But unlike August: Osage County, which this movie reminded me a lot of in terms of plot, the former had some moments in the script that allowed for some dramatic flair; the latter didn't.
And the humorous moments in this one didn't lift the movie to a place where it created magic.
It was still an enjoyable watch in the end, to see the dysfunction that perhaps some families could relate; and maybe have some awareness in and for their own lives.
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