Love The Coopers and Love Actually syndrome

[author_by_night]

As promised, here is my review. It's a tad spoilery.

The reviews for this film were decidedly mixed, and I can see why, because coming out, I myself was decidedly mixed.

Let's get this over with: It's not a comedy. It's a drama. There's some funny moments, but even those were more chuckle-smile worthy than "falling out of my seat" funny. If there were supposed to be more amusing moments, the movie missed the mark. At the same time, the drama actually works. The dialogue between the different characters is mostly well-constructed, although it does start to lag until we get to Christmas Eve. (Christmas Day? The movie was a little unclear on that front.) At one point I'll admit I considered taking a nap.

And that wasn't the only issue. First.,  even though the whole point was that they were supposed to be fixing things as a family, it doesn't quite work - especially as they drop a hint of a bombshell that never goes anywhere; we learn that one of the things that started rocking the boat was the loss of the  Sam and Charlotte's third child. Yet this isn't shown to affect this deceased child's brother and sister, despite the fact that they are unsettled people - the thing that apparently robbed Eleanor of her trust and willingness to display affection for people wasn't the death of her sister, but the fact that her fiance cheated on her. Really? Arguably Eleanor might have been too young to remember, or perhaps the movie meant to imply that this death instigated a lot of rage that the characters nonetheless blamed on other things. Still, because the death is only mentioned in passing, it might as well not have been written in at all.

It's not just that, though. It takes us half the film before we see them all together. We don't get any sense of their family dynamics except that it's obvious how they're related. More on that point in a moment.

Let's talk about Marisa Tomei's character, who plays Diane Keaton's younger sister even though the actresses are nineteen years apart. I could forgive this as there are people with siblings that much older than them; however, in flashbacks they seem to be about four, five years apart, if even. Incidentally I think it might have actually worked better if they had made it that she was supposed to be a lot younger, hence her feeling a little out of place. But no, Hollywood just hates women over fifty unless they're Diane Keaton. That wasn't all, though; her character is very out of place. She has an entire conversation with a police officer that doesn't do anything for the story, and I never really understood where she was coming from, why she was there. Her part could've been written out entirely, which is ironic given that her resolution appears to be that she "really was part of the family."

Now, going back to my point before... the movie is disjointed, because it tries to be Love Actually. The thing with Love Actually is, it wasn't a bunch of half-stories. Everyone had a story, and the characters weren't so connected that you felt you were missing something. This was a bunch of half-stories leading up to a larger story that failed to deliver. Everyone starts making out in a hospital waiting room. Okay then. Though I did like the dancing.

I think the worst part about Love The Coopers is that it actually had the potential to be a great film. It was good, but I think the writers tried to make it bigger than it was meant to be, making it fall short.  In the end, it felt less like a 2:15 hour long film and more like a lot of short films compiled together clumsily as one movie.

Comments

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

The thing with Love Actually is, it wasn't a bunch of half-stories. Everyone had a story, and the characters weren't so connected that you felt you were missing something. This was a bunch of half-stories leading up to a larger story that failed to deliver.

Yup, I thought as much.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

Watching the trailer, it was making me think of The Family Stone, and not just because of Diane Keaton. You didn't get that impression from the actual movie? (Assuming you've seen The Family Stone?)

I do like Love Actually though. I keep forgetting it's Christmas-themed, rather than Valentine's.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

Ugh, I HATED The Family Stone. This was a tad more optimistic, at least, and I liked that. But there are definitely similarities.

I also really like Love Actually. But I think so many movies try to pull off what Love Actually did without really considering what made it work.

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHA--see, I actually liked that one a lot more than I thought I would. It had the same producer/director or something, didn't it?

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

It honestly wouldn't surprise me.

To be fair, cancer's a touchy issue for me, so I think that really ruined it, but at the same time wasn't the movie's fault. And I wasn't prepared for it to be a more serious "comedy," whereas now I've seen enough "comedies" that weren't remotely funny that I'm better prepared.

I will say that in hindsight, The Family Stone did do a much better job of capturing a family having a stressful, bittersweet Christmas where things aren't really where they should be, but somehow everyone manages to pull it together. This one... wanted to be that, but like I said, we barely saw more than two family members together at a time, so it would've worked better if they had done it more like Love Actually, where everyone was more thinly connected.