This Is Where I Leave You

What's the message?

"It's complicated."

And?

"Love causes cancer like everything else, but it has its moments."

Which means?

"No one is happy."

Don't get the wrong end of the barge pole. This is a com, not a rom com. However, like cancer, it has its moments.

If you saw August: Osage County you've seen this - lite! A family comes together after the death of the patriarch and have to stay in each others company for a week because of some Jewish tradition, although Daddy wasn't Jewish.

Weird, or what?

You have Mom (Jane Fonda) with new breasts that spook out her sons who have marital/sexual issues in spades and their sister Wendy (Tina Fey) whose husband is a workaholic investment shithead and therefore useless in every department except financial.

This is nostalgia, soured by memory. Here's a taste.

"Penny loved you," Wendy tells Judd (Jason Bateman). "You loved Annie. Annie married Paul. You married Quinn."

Penny (Rose Byrne) stayed around and became skating coach at the local rink. Annie (Kathryn Hahn) is aching for a baby and 6ft something Paul (Corey Stoll) worries that he's shooting blanks. Quinn (Abigail Spencer) is Judd's wife who's been banging his boss for a year.

Philip (Adam Driver) is the one who never grew up. He arrives late for the funeral in a shiny sports car with his latest squeeze (Connie Britton) who is older and prettier, as well as being his shrink, and then cheats on her with a teenage blonde.

The film is never laugh-out-loud. It's never laugh. Maybe smile.

"Cut yourself some slack," Wendy says. "Anything can happen."

It doesn't. Not really. Not enough.