In a word…dull.

This film looks like it has been cloned from one of the increasing number of ‘writer has old parent and dysfunctional family but they all get sorted out in the end’ genre.

We don’t care about the characters, we don’t care about the plot and we don’t care about their dysfunctions.

As with previous versions of this film the main character is a writer struggling to get his magnum opus completed. He has a dysfunctional relationship with a Polish woman (a non-character) and he teaches in a university. His sister is a writer trying to get a play performed but in the mean time temps in offices to pay the bills. The siblings have been competing with each other most of their lives but both live under the shadow of bad parenting and this has clouded their ability to be successes. He’s overweight (loser?) and she is having a relationship with a married man (loser?)

The father is losing his marbles and is placed in a (cheap) old people’s home. The place is funded by Medicare so you expect the worse but the orderlies turn out to be very nice and caring.

Through the trials and tribulations of being old and dying the children learn how to turn their lives around and become less dysfunctional.

If you want to see this film in another guise watch one of these:

• About Schmidt (old man film)
• Little Miss Sunshine (writer/old man)
• The Squid and the Whale (writer/old man/dysfunctional family)
• Running with Scissors (writer/old man/dysfunctional family)
• Wonder Boys (writer/dysfunctional people)

zzzzzz…