Sergio's Fall Movie Countdown--#7

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

In a continuing series, Sergio reveals the ten films he is most looking forward to this fall.

7. The Family Stone
directed by Thomas Bezucha
opens 12/16

Rachel McAdams is my movie girlfriend. (She replaced my long-time love Uma Thurman earlier this year after I saw The Notebook and Red Eye back-to-back.) I'm going out with her not just because she is beautiful (of course) but also because she is a really good screen actor, probably the best of her age. There is always something going on in her eyes that tells you her mind is working. (This is particularly true in Red Eye. This is not a quality you can underestimate. If an actor can make you believe they are actually connecting the dots and not just following the script, they are doing something great.) The Notebook could have been schmaltzy crap, but McAdams' performance (alongside Ryan Gosling) had real spark. It was one of the few love stories in recent memory where you really felt these people were both in love and in lust with each other.

The Family Stone is about a hippie-ish family uniting in common cause when their favorite son (Dermot Mulroney) brings his uptight girlfriend (Sarah Jessica Parker) home for the Christmas holiday, with plans of proposing. Overwhelmed by the hostile reception, she begs her sister (Claire Danes) to join her for emotional support, triggering further complications. McAdams and Luke Wilson plays the siblings, Craig T. Nelson and Diane Keaton play the parents.

If you watch the trailer for The Family Stone, it looks a little sitcom-ey. From what I've heard, this is deceiving. The film was produced by Michael London, who also delivered The House of Sand and Fog, Thirteen and the brilliant Sideways. This guy knows classy, personal filmmaking and isn't going to waste his time on junk. The buzz is Diane Keaton is a lock for a Supporting Actress nomination. By the trailer at least, it looks like Luke Wilson is going to steal the show. Of the Wilson brothers, I've always been a bigger fan of Owen. Luke always seemed so boring, so blah. But he really came around for me in Old School and he looks hilarious here. The film is being sold as an emsemble but I've heard Wilson's role gradually becomes the lead by the end.

Writer/director Thomas Bezucha is a complete unknown. He directed a little-seen indie a few years ago and almost made this one on two different occasions outside of Hollywood. I'm glad he was able to hang in there and get this made with a decent budget and an A-list cast.

You know by the end of the movie, Parker is going to loosen up and the rest of the family is going to accept her. There will probably be hugging and crying. But I am confident it will happen honestly and not in a Nora Ephron-ish bullshit way. (The original title of the script was F***ing Hating Her, which doesn't exactly sound sentimental.) Jeffrey Wells says it is...

...a home-for-the-holidays family pic with smarts and feeling and humor that's simultaneously sensitive, abrasive and "real." Tight, sharply written, enjoyably acted. I've seen it twice so far and I'm looking forward to more viewings.

He's usually pretty tough and doesn't normally abide any sentimental crap. (He hated March of the Penguins.) Here's hoping he's right. And hands off my girlfriend, I saw her first.

TOMORROW: The reclusive poet laureate of American film goes native.