The Family Stone

Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) and Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) in THE FAMILY STONE.
©2005, Twentieth Century Fox. Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal

 
At first glance, Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) and Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) seem appropriate for each other: Everett’s the stiff, never without a necktie—running for mayor. If Meredith’s hair were tied back any tighter, her face might explode. However, while Everett comes from an affluent, liberal family, Meredith’s appears to be rather conservative—as far as we know. That’s one of the problems with this film. While the Stone family is the centerpiece of the film, we are only introduced to the Morton sisters, including Julie (Claire Danes), whose presence, until late in the film, takes the form of a recurring cell phone theme.

A Range Rover pulls into the driveway of the Stone family’s New England home. Thad Stone (Tyrone Giordano) and his partner, Brian (Patrick Thomas), have come home for the holidays. Their mother, Sybil—Diane Keaton playing the tired cliché of the libertarian, brazen matriarch—is sitting, nearly catatonic, in the living room. Obviously something of a serious nature is on her mind, but I’ll let you figure it out for yourself.

While Keaton is, again, graduating into what is sure to be a perpetual string of matriarchal roles, she does it with a cleverness all her own. In a later scene where the subject of conversation needs to be changed, her intercession is timed perfectly.

Amy (Rachel McAdams), the youngest of Sybil and Kelly’s (Craig T. Nelson) two daughters, forewarns the rest of the family of the uptight, conservative whom Everett intends to marry. We know Amy’s the “ultra-liberal” because, in contrast to the other vehicles (there’s a theme here, and it unintentionally stereotypes cars as status symbols, as though the luxury car market needs such a push), Amy drives a beat up, old Volvo station wagon that has “Greenpeacenik” written all over it. Amy notes that Meredith is one of those “throat clearers,” and she is… the remark serves as one of many sticking points by which the family is intended to appear annoyed. However, isn’t it interesting that no one in the Stone family stops to wonder what’s causing the nervous tick?

Before Meredith’s even set foot in the house, the Stones have already built up an impression of her in their minds—except for the eldest son, Ben (Luke Wilson). A documentary film editor living on the west coast, Ben sees things in a decidedly different (read: relaxed) light. He’s not quick to judge someone he hasn’t met before. Immediately, we begin to see an obvious possibility arise. But what’s funny about the film is not whether Ben will or won’t wind up with his polar opposite, Meredith, but how.

It’s not to say Ben doesn’t like to have a little fun with Meredith, but rather than the mean-spirited derision of his siblings and parents, his actions are aimed at loosening her up a little bit. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before (the stretching to protrude the crotch noticeably, etc.), but Luke Wilson brings a subtly charming, flirty personality to it.

Initially, Meredith is reluctant to open up, except to Everett. She knows that the family dislikes her. She lacks self-confidence, which only exacerbates their negative impression of her. However, in films like this they don’t cast an otherwise plucky actress for the express purpose of playing a shrew from beginning to end. Most will recall Parker’s role in TV’s Sex and the City, but I hearken back to Mick Jackson’s “L.A. Story,” a delightfully-surreal parody of Southerm California life, in which Parker, as SaNDeE*(yes, spelled like that) plays a spontaneous, exhuberant sales clerk who falls for weather anchor, Harris (Steve Martin).

As soon as the family asks Meredith about how she met Everett, she bursts forth like a robot on crack, and the family, irritated by her droning on, can’t seem to figure out where her off switch is. Things come to a head, however, when, in a game of charades, Amy sets up Meredith with a clue that provokes a somewhat tactless action on her part.

Unable to handle the family’s tactics, Meredith calls her sister. When Julie arrives into town, Everett goes to pick her up from the bus depot. From the moment she falls off the bus (no pun, this time the girl actually does…), we know she’s smitten with Everett and vice-versa.

Now, isn’t this a convenient plot development that will probably leave no one unaccounted for? In a way I’m glad, because ever since 1985, I have been left wondering, “Yeah, sure, everything worked out for Claire and Bender, Andrew and Allison… but what about Brian?!” Never mind.

I think what makes this switcheroo work is Sarah Jessica Parker. While lesser films like “She’s All That” have been satirized for taking an otherwise attractive actress and making a few hair and wardrobe modifications (e.g. glasses) to make the lead female go from entirely drab to entirely hot… Here the effect actually works because Parker is a very talented actor.

Her talent is especially evident during a dinner conversation when Meredith, again demonstrating a lack of social skill, insinuates that Thad and Brian, who are planning to adopt, don’t constitute “normal” parents. As viewers, we tend to pick scenes we like as representative of good acting. If an actor plays someone to the point of truly detestable quality, acted extremely well we might lose the distinction—hating the actor as much as the character. But here, Parker is brilliant in her awkwardness. Like anyone who clearly doesn’t understand how they are offending others present (whether they are right or wrong is entirely another debate), she continues railroading until the discussion implodes.

Meredith’s staccato rhythm (or lack thereof) and social ineptitude are so entirely grating, but in a way that never seems intentional… such that her turn with Ben, if apparently unthinkable at the beginning, becomes more plausible as the story unfolds. Thus, with the help of Ben’s optimism, we realize her problem isn’t being conservative and prudish so much as it is being an unskilled and, under present circumstances, intimidated communicator. Under stress, people can seem like complete asses.

She leaves in a huff and, now with all the tension built up, it makes her accident-prone departure all the funnier… a much-needed release. Ben, not Everett, comes to support Meredith. What she needs isn’t the man coming to rescue her… she needs a drink. Ben knows just the place.

What’s great about this scene is that when Meredith cuts loose, as corny as her dancing is, as forced as it may seem, it fits entirely with her character. She dances to the beat of an entirely different instrument… I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a drum. But Meredith here is adorable in her own, spastic way.

As an unabashed social libertarian, you would think I’d lean toward the Stone family as well as the unfolding relationship between Everett and Julie, who handles artist grants for the Rockefeller Foundation. You’d imagine me rooting for them, and maybe even I would imagine me doing so. But the quality of this film is it pulls me in precisely the opposite direction not by forcing my perspective, but by clever persuasion.

In most films like this, the emphasis would be on the Everett and Julie characters, and the entire film would be championing their obviously inevitable romance, and then celebrating its realization. Julie is likeable in a predictable way, and Everett is so underdeveloped (not so much as a character, but as a human being). The director, however, wisely observes this, rather than resisting it with a forced denouement entirely incongruent with the real center of this story.

What could have derailed this story, but doesn’t quite, is a maudlin subplot that I will not reveal. Suffice it to say, those of you for whom the tears flow rather easily may wish to bring hankies. Perhaps for medical reasons, or because I’m not easily taken by deliberate heartstring-tugging, artesian wells in the Sahara have been known to produce more moisture than my tear ducts.

The true winners here are Ben and Meredith. By demonstrating what it means to be open-minded, Ben persuades Meredith to cut loose. When she’s in her element, free to be her true self, dancing her spastic dance, listening to, I dunno, Kenny G or whatever it is she loves to do, Meredith’s actually a rather attractive and likeable woman.

She even stops clearing her throat every five seconds.

The Family Stone • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 • Running Time: 102 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sexual content including dialogue, and drug references. • Distributed by Fox 2000 Pictures