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I was poised to attack "The Family Stone" because its story of a family of misfits is no match for the brilliance of " Junebug ." I was all worked up to bemoan the way a holiday release with stars like Claire Danes , Diane Keaton , Dermot Mulroney and Luke Wilson gets a big advertising sendoff, while a brilliant film like "Junebug," ambitious and truthful, is shuffled off into "art film" purgatory. Then sanity returned: "Junebug" intends to be a great film, and is, and "The Family Stone" intends to be a screwball comedy, and is, and all they have in common is an outsider coming into a family circle. To punish "The Family Stone" because of "Junebug" would be like discovering that "The Producers" is not " The Sweet Smell of Success ."

So let's see what it is. As the movie opens, the Stones are preparing to celebrate Christmas. The oldest son, Everett (Dermot Mulroney) is bringing home his fiancee Meredith ( Sarah Jessica Parker ) to meet the family. Meredith is not going to be an easy fit. She's aggressive, uptight, hyper-sensitive and dresses like someone who has never been undressed.

Waiting in the hometown are Everett's family: His mom Sybil (Diane Keaton), his dad Kelly ( Craig T. Nelson ), his brother Ben (Luke Wilson), his gay and deaf brother Thad (Ty Giordano), and his kid sister Amy ( Rachel McAdams ). We will also meet Thad's African-American partner, Patrick (Brian White), and their adopted son.

So, OK, if the Stones are OK with Patrick, they're strong on empathy and acceptance. Therefore, if they don't like Meredith, it is because she is not to be liked. And that does seem to be the case, because (1) it is instantly obvious to her mother Sybil that this is the wrong woman for her son Everett, and (2) poor Meredith is one of those perfectionists who in their rigid compulsion to do the right thing always succeed in doing the wrong one.

Sir Michael Tippett, who wrote operas, said, "There is only one comic plot: the unexpected hindrances to an eventual marriage." While this definition does not encompass "A Night at the Opera" or " Babe: Pig in the City ," there is much truth in it. In Meredith's case, she is her own greatest hindrance to marriage, and the more she realizes that, the deeper the hole she digs.

The screenplay by director Thomas Bezucha establishes subplots around this central fact. We learn that Everett is drawn to Meredith partly because he believes that to be successful in business, he should be more like her and less like he really is. We learn that Ben, the Luke Wilson character, thinks of himself as a wild and crazy guy. We meet Meredith's sister Julie (Claire Danes), who flies in to rescue her sister and turns into a second fly in the same ointment. Julie is as relaxed and natural as Meredith is emotionally constipated.

And then, in ways I will not reveal, it turns out there is another truth Sir Michael might have observed: Opposites attract.

"The Family Stone" is silly at times, leaning toward the screwball tradition of everyone racing around the house at the same time in a panic fueled by serial misunderstandings. There is also a thoughtful side, involving the long and loving marriage of Sybil and Kelly. Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson create touching characters in the middle of comic chaos. They have a scene together as true and intimate in its way as a scene involving a long-married couple can be. It doesn't involve a lot of dialogue, and doesn't need to, because it obviously draws on a lot of history.

There is an emerging genre of movies about family reunions at holiday time. It seems to be a truth universally acknowledged that most reunions at Christmas end happily, while most reunions at Thanksgiving end sadly. That's odd, because the way things shake down in the world of fragmented families, we tend to spend Thanksgiving with those we choose, and Christmas with those we must. If those two lists are identical in your life, your holidays must all be joyous, or all not.

What is always true is that the holiday itself imposes Aristotle's unities of time and place upon the plot. Most of the action takes place in the house or on the way and from it, and whatever happens will have to happen before everybody heads back to the airport. That creates an artificial deadline that makes everything seem more urgent and requires that the truth be told or love declared right here and now, or not at all.

"The Family Stone" sorts out its characters admirably, depends on typecasting to help establish its characters more quickly, and finds a winding path between happy and sad secrets to that moment when we realize that the Family Stone will always think of this fateful Christmas with a smile, and a tear. What else do you want? If it's a lot, just rent "Junebug."

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

The Family Stone (2005)

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content including dialogue and drug references

103 minutes

Luke Wilson as Ben Stone

Craig T. Nelson as Kelly Stone

Claire Danes as Julie Morton

Rachel McAdams as Amy Stone

Sarah Jessica Parker as Meredith Morton

Tyrone Giordano as Thad Stone

Dermot Mulroney as Everett Stone

Diane Keaton as Sybil Stone

Directed and written by

Thomas Bezucha

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Cast & crew
User reviews
The Family Stone

An uptight, liberal businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirite... Read all An uptight, liberal businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life. An uptight, liberal businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.

Thomas Bezucha
Dermot Mulroney
Sarah Jessica Parker
Claire Danes
597 User reviews
142 Critic reviews
56 Metascore
4 wins & 8 nominations

Everett Stone

Meredith Morton

Julie Morton

Sybil Stone

Kelly Stone

(as Ty Giordano)

Patrick Thomas

Susannah Stone Trousdale

Brad Stevenson

Elizabeth Trousdale

John Trousdale

David Silver
Jittery Cashier

Bus Driver One
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia Writer and director Thomas Bezucha put the nine cast members playing the Stones through several weeks of rehearsal so they would bond well enough off-camera to convincingly portray a family. This included a crash course in American Sign Language, as eight of the nine characters would be called upon to utilize American Sign Language in the script to either communicate with or interpret for the character of Thaddeus. While some critics, and the cast members themselves, pointed out that their American Sign Language use was sub-par, it was actually a realistic portrayal of a hearing family's use of the language, which is often perfunctory at best.
Goofs Over Amy by the window while the family is gawking at Meredith outside when they first arrive.

Sybil Stone : [to Amy, after opening Meredith's Christmas gift, a photo of a very pregnant Sybil] That's me and you, kid.

[Amy looks up, crying and nodding]

Sybil Stone : Me and you.

Connections Featured in Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Jack Black/Rachel McAdams/Charles Ross (2005)
Soundtracks Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Written by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn Performed by Dean Martin Courtesy of Capitol Records Under license from EMI Film & Television Music

User reviews 597

Mar 17, 2006
How long is The Family Stone? Powered by Alexa
December 16, 2005 (United States)
United States
Official site
American Sign Language
Untitled Thomas Bezucha Project
Drew University - 36 Madison Avenue, Madison, New Jersey, USA
Fox 2000 Pictures
Major Studio Partners
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$18,000,000 (estimated)
$60,062,868
$12,521,027
Dec 18, 2005
$92,884,429

Technical specs

Runtime 1 hour 43 minutes
Dolby Digital

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The Family Stone Reviews

I just can't stand this group and the ending is unbelievable

Full Review | Jul 26, 2023

By the end of the film...I always find myself tearing up.

Full Review | Dec 5, 2022

The Family Stone flips the script by having Thad be loved and supported by all his siblings and both his parents. Nothing can compete with Diane Lane, as Thad’s mom...

Full Review | Sep 26, 2022

There is a lack of craft to the project in nearly every sense that sees great actors give good performances as bad characters.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Aug 28, 2022

Although "Stone" has some problems, it's still a film that works -- thanks to a very agreeable cast.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Nov 19, 2019

Remarkably for a Hollywood movie, this very entertaining comedy proves that the outward good cheer and inward bad vibes of the Christmas season can not only coexist, but amusingly feed upon each other.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 14, 2018

The movie feels sentimental but never cheesy: Our allegiances shift throughout, until we decide everyone deserves our sympathy, everyone has reasons.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 31, 2018

a gob of yuletide Play-Doh

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 17, 2010

The Family Stone works hard to warm the cockles of our hearts. The cast is attractive. The sentiments are commendable. But the love Bezucha wants us to feel for the family couldn't possibly compete with the love they already feel for themselves.

Full Review | Jul 7, 2010

I loved it.

Full Review | Apr 29, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: B | May 7, 2007

The farcical elements are much too loaded to provide any real fun, and the Stones come off more as sanctimonious, politically correct left-wing prigs than enchanting.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2007

The movie feels a lot like slacker brother Ben: a little sloppy, mostly predictable, some flashes of poignancy and wisdom, but ultimately doesn't live up to its potential.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 22, 2006

What's so refreshing about Thomas Bezucha's The Family Stone is how it plays off of genre expectations and effortlessly switches back and forth between comedy, romance and tragedy.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 12, 2006

Tocante sem ser melodramático, desenvolve bem seus personagens, cujas interações soam sempre reais. Além disso, o filme oscila com segurança entre o drama e a comédia e conta com um elenco formidável.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 14, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 1, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Mar 18, 2006

...turns from endearing to phony even before the first carol is sung.

Full Review | Feb 21, 2006

Full Review | Feb 17, 2006

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The family stone, common sense media reviewers.

Bittersweet story won't appeal to younger teens.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Holidays are stressful, but family members really

Some fighting between brothers, treated as comedy

Sexual activity hinted at (woman wakes up in wrong

Minor language ("damn," "s--t").

Brief shot of Santa/Norelco ad on TV; beer labels

Drinking in bar, to point of passing out and forge

Positive Messages

Holidays are stressful, but family members really love each other.

Violence & Scariness

Some fighting between brothers, treated as comedy and leaving black eyes and cut faces.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Sexual activity hinted at (woman wakes up in wrong brother's bed); gay couple kisses chastely; parents kiss and snuggle in bed, revealing very briefly the mother's mastectomy scar.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Brief shot of Santa/Norelco ad on TV; beer labels visible in bar; an NPR logo marks a character's "liberal" leanings.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Drinking in bar, to point of passing out and forgetting the evening; references to pot-smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this romantic comedy focuses on family tensions emerging when grown children come home for the Christmas holidays. Characters argue and pout; brothers fight, causing black eyes and cut cheeks. Characters drink at a bar, to the point that one passes out and doesn't remember how she ends up in her fiancé's brother's bed. One character is accused of racism, homophobia, and general "uptightness." While it's mainly comedic, the movie also includes a plot thread where a character is dying of cancer (brief glimpse of her mastectomy scar). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (2)
Kids say (6)

Based on 2 parent reviews

One of my favorite Christmas films

Such a great family movie for older or more mature teens., what's the story.

In THE FAMILY STONE, the liberal-leaning, proud Stones are upset when good boy Everett ( Dermot Mulroney ) brings home a bad fiancée. Granted, Meredith ( Sarah Jessica Parker ) doesn't mean to be bad. In fact, she tries very hard to be liked. But she's just tense, fretful, and sometimes ignorant, making her a target for the free-thinking Stones. The family includes parents Sybil ( Diane Keaton ) and Kelly ( Craig T. Nelson ), and the kids: deaf Thad (Tyrone Giordano) and his African American partner Patrick (Brian J. White), pregnant Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) and her charmingly brainy daughter Elizabeth (Savannah Stehlin), pot-smoking documentary filmmaker Ben ( Luke Wilson ), and the wittily "mean one," Amy ( Rachel McAdams ). Before such judges, every word Meredith speaks seems to indict her. Only Ben supports her. He encourages her: "You have the freak flag, you just don't fly it." Flying that flag will prove Meredith's salvation.

Is It Any Good?

Thomas Bezucha's film means well and offers fine performances, but is in the end tripped up by holiday-family-gathering movie clichés. The point of The Family Stone isn't really measuring up, though this is, of course, the presumption of Christmas-family-gathering movies.

While it provides pleasurable moments (Susannah watching Judy Garland sing in Meet Me in St. Louis on TV, Brad finding the perfect gift for Amy), The Family Stone is, finally, less brave than Meredith, resorting at last to cookie-cutter resolutions like slapsticky fights and everyone's-happy couplings.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the family relationships. How do the kids' behaviors resemble their parents'? How do the Stones come to see their presumed open-mindedness as insular and judgmental? How might Meredith's transformation from tense to sociable (here pushed along by a night of drinking), be achieved in a less stereotypical way?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 16, 2005
On DVD or streaming : May 2, 2006
Cast : Diane Keaton , Rachel McAdams , Sarah Jessica Parker
Director : Thomas Bezucha
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Twentieth Century Fox
Genre : Comedy
Run time : 102 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : some sexual content including dialogue, and drug references.
Last updated : December 2, 2023

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Twentieth Century Fox

Summary The Family Stone is a story about an annual gathering of an unconventional New England family. Before the holidays are done, relationships will unravel while new ones are formed, secrets will be revealed and the Stone family will come together through its extraordinary capacity for love. (20th Century Fox)

Directed By : Thomas Bezucha

Written By : Thomas Bezucha

Where to Watch

Dermot Mulroney

Everett stone.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Meredith morton.

Claire Danes

Julie morton.

Diane Keaton

Sybil stone.

Rachel McAdams

Craig T. Nelson

Kelly stone.

Luke Wilson

Tyrone Giordano

Brian White

Patrick thomas.

Elizabeth Reaser

Susannah stone trousdale.

Paul Schneider

Brad stevenson, savannah stehlin, elizabeth trousdale.

Jamie Kaler

John trousdale, robert dioguardi, david silver, carol locatell, ginna carter, jittery cashier, gus buktenica, michael pemberton, bus driver one, bus driver two, christopher parker, inn receptionist, critic reviews.

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FILM REVIEW

Time to Drop the Cellphone and Pick Up a Casserole

By Manohla Dargis

Dec. 16, 2005

All happy families resemble one another, Tolstoy famously wrote, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, but Tolstoy didn't know the Stones, who are happy in a Hollywood kind of way and unhappy in a self-help kind of way. This tribe of ravenous cannibals bares its excellent teeth at anyone who doesn't accommodate the family's preening self-regard. Its most recent target is Meredith Morton, an executive played by Sarah Jessica Parker, who probably hopes to marry into the clan, little realizing that this will leave no Stone unturned and all aimed straight at her head.

Written and directed by Thomas Bezucha, "The Family Stone" opens inside a crowded department store, with Meredith talking nonstop into a cellphone while her boyfriend, Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney), buys a gift. Meredith steps out of her bubble only long enough to correct Everett's gift choice brusquely and make the salesgirl feel bad. (In some flicks, cellphones are the new cigarettes, a sure sign of incivility.) There are few character types Hollywood loves to hate more than the female business executive, what the movies once called a "career woman." And with her brittle efficiency and tight chignon, Meredith looks precisely like one of those types for whom comeuppance and a more relaxed hairstyle are right around the corner.

That corner and that comeuppance will be revealed inside the studiously tasteful Stone family manse, to which Everett squires Meredith home for the holidays. Located in a picture-perfect New England college town (actually, Madison, N.J.), the house looks more persuasively lived in than many big-studio interiors, perhaps because of all the books crammed onto shelves and piled on night tables. The Stone patriarch, Kelly (Craig T. Nelson), is a professor, and the family's vaguely bookish, boho vibe is reinforced by the Susan Sontag-style splash of white that punctuates the otherwise dark head of his wife, Sybil (Diane Keaton), a woman of multiple moods, if not personalities. If Kelly serves as the family's foundation, Sybil is a lot like the house itself, a warm womb in which each family member can seek refuge.

There is, of course, something irresistible about having a maternal womb of one's own, and not just as a pretext for cheap puns. The hitch here is that Mom is fairly monstrous, and most of her five kids fairly unbearable. The exceptions are Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser), who, perhaps because she has her own family, is merely bland, and Ben (Luke Wilson), whose laid-back charm owes much to the actor playing him. Less appealing are the baby Stone, Amy (Rachel McAdams), and Thad (Ty Giordano), who is deaf and about to adopt a child with his partner, Patrick (Brian White). Shrouded in saintliness and as neutered as geldings, Thad and Patrick offer further proof that as far as pop culture representation is concerned, gay men are fine, as long as they're redecorating or straighter than straight.

It takes a while for Sybil's monstrosity to emerge, mainly because the reliably appealing Ms. Keaton, with her fluttering hands and gorgeous smile, radiates such likability. The film doesn't present the character as a monster; this is, after all, a paean to that beloved fiction called the sanctity of the family. More interesting, though, the film is also a clear attempt to bottle the manic energy and generous spirit of madcap classics like George Cukor's wonderful 1938 "Holiday." This partly explains Mr. Bezucha's unfortunate attempts at broad physical comedy (flying casseroles, etc.), which even a dexterous performer like Ms. Parker has trouble with. This actress fares better facing off against Ms. Keaton, whose character carries a dark secret that will be a secret only to those who don't notice the rampaging elephant in the room.

In a better movie, these strong-willed women would be ready-made friends rather than instant combatants. A better movie would also bring Amy, the second most unbearable family member, into a sisterhood, rather than turn her into the resident baddie. (Amy carries a National Public Radio tote bag, a red flag for intolerance, if ever there was one.) Like Meredith and Sybil, Amy is the other putatively difficult woman in this film, a shrew-in-training who spews bile at Meredith as readily as Linda Blair once spewed pea soup. Like Ms. Keaton and Ms. Parker, Ms. McAdams is such an engaging screen presence that she holds your attention and sympathy despite the handicap presented by her character's personality or, rather, sex, which here are one and the same thing.

The female troubles that bedevil "The Family Stone" are by turns exasperating and fascinating. Save for the boring sister, the women are pills, but they're also far more fun to watch than the men, who all are terribly kind and dull, dull, dull. (Ben is by far the most appealing, but he also seems permanently stoned.) The women make "The Family Stone," especially Ms. Parker, whose nimble performance is reason alone to see the film: not since Philippe Petit has anyone walked a tightrope with such finesse -- and in high heels, no less. Of course, her character will eventually be added to the Stone pile, and like everyone else in this fairy tale, she will be paired with her ideal mate, as if she were set for Noah's Ark instead of one leaking, creaking vehicle.

"The Family Stone" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). The language is lightly spiced.

The Family Stone Opens today nationwide.

Written and directed by Thomas Bezucha; director of photography, Jonathan Brown; edited by Jeffrey Ford; production designer, Jane Ann Stewart; produced by Michael London; released by 20th Century Fox. Running time: 102 minutes.

WITH: Claire Danes (Julie Morton), Diane Keaton (Sybil Stone), Rachel McAdams (Amy Stone), Dermot Mulroney (Everett Stone), Craig T. Nelson (Kelly Stone), Sarah Jessica Parker (Meredith Morton), Luke Wilson (Ben Stone), Elizabeth Reaser (Susannah), Ty Giordano (Thad Stone) and Brian White (Patrick).

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It's the season of good will, but there's not much of it going round in yuletide comedy The Family Stone. Diane Keaton plays the head of the clan and leads the assault on Sarah Jessica Parker as the uptight New Yorker who threatens to marry her son (Dermot Mulroney). Although it sounds like a mean-spirited twist on Meet The Parents , writer/director Thomas Bezucha swaps the slapstick for a surprisingly tender if sometimes too cloying account of a family in upheaval.

Initially things aren't promising with Meredith coming across just as annoying as her spiteful in-laws. Only Luke Wilson exudes the Christmas spirit, playing the would-be brother-in-law who takes an inexplicable shine to her. "You have the freak flag," he explains. "You just don't fly it." Gradually though, the cracks in everyone's armour begin to show and with Claire Danes' arrival (typically soulful as Meredith's sister), an all-out bitch-fest becomes an engaging ensemble piece.

"TEAR-JERKING FINALE"

In a fearless and funny bit of writing, Meredith drops a clanger at the dinner table about the suitability of gay couples as parents. It's a testament to the skilful script that she still inspires sympathy without the crutch of being stereotypically kooky or cosy. Parker carries it off well and likewise Rachel McAdams (playing the youngest Stone) reveals an endearing vulnerability beneath her viciousness. It's Keaton, however, who anchors the story with a formidable countenance that becomes her character's greatest virtue. Bezucha hammers the point home a little too strongly in a tear-jerking finale, but despite its flaws, The Family Stone sparkles bright with originality.

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EW debates 'The Family Stone': The best Christmas movie, or the worst?

The Family Stone is one of those Christmas movies viewers either love or hate, mostly because it's just about impossible to sort of like Diane Keaton or sort of dislike Sarah Jessica Parker. Stone is also known for forcing audiences to confront difficult questions, including "Which Wilson brother do I prefer?" and "How do I feel about Dermot Mulroney's cry face?"

Correspondent Samantha Highfill and senior writer Darren Franich decided to talk out their feelings about the controversial (in our office, anyway) 2005 film. Sam's in the film's pro corner; Darren's bringing all the cons.

Happy holidays!

SAM: Where does one begin when talking about The Family Stone ? Let's start with the fact that it's about a beautifully dysfunctional family led by the brilliant duo of Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson. Has there ever been a better parental pairing in a Christmas movie? No, there has not. Add in Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Luke Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser, and Tyrone Giordano as their grown children, and I've never wanted to hang out with a family more. Seriously, you saw them play Charades. They're FUN. Plus, they all know sign language—because brother Thad is deaf—which just makes them cooler.

DARREN: On paper, it's the perfect family, and the perfect set-up for a great Christmas movie. Unfortunately, The Family Stone is not a Christmas movie. It's a horror movie in which the perfect family's perfect Christmas gets invaded by Sarah Jessica Parker, portraying the worst character in movie history. SJP plays Meredith Morton, who's nominally some kind of executive from Manhattan. But actually, she's a social terrorist from space who has the emotional intelligence of a five-year-old raised in a bomb shelter. My problems with the movie start with her character: Parker played the definition of a hip New Yorker in Sex and the City , so it's a tonal nightmare to see her playing a big-city executive who appears to have never heard of gay people, or deaf people, or to have learned really any basic level of human interaction.

But more to the point: Can we talk about the fact that this is a movie where Dermot Mulroney takes his girlfriend home for Christmas…and then meets his girlfriend's sister…and then immediately falls in love with the sister…and then asks the sister to try on his grandmother's wedding ring? And it's totally okay, because the girlfriend wants to date Dermot Mulroney's brother? Sam, I ask you: Doesn't The Family Stone only make sense if we pretend everyone onscreen is completely insane?

SAM: You know what is insane, Darren? Love. Love makes us do crazy things, like fall for our terrible girlfriend's sister or our hot boyfriend's brother. But here's the thing: We're overthinking this. The Family Stone isn't Interstellar ; it doesn't need to be analyzed. This is a quirky, incredibly chaotic family that sometimes swaps love interests. So what? It's a Christmas movie. Anything is possible! And I won't complain about it, because Luke Wilson is the one thing that makes Sarah Jessica Parker tolerable.

What I will say about SJP's portrayal is that this film takes the idea that Sarah Jessica Parker is annoying, then plays it up to the umpteenth degree—even making sure her ponytail is so tight that it hurts to look at her. I have to appreciate a film that takes Carrie Bradshaw, distorts her, and doesn't stop until she's completely unlikable. Yet she doesn't ruin the film. Her whole purpose is to serve as the counterpoint to this messy, liberal family.

Is Meredith the worst? Yes. Does her awfulness bring about some great moments for the "perfect" family? Yes. And for me, that's her entire purpose. (Well, that and her dance.) But to go back to your question of sanity: I think these people are "insane" in a way. They know that they're losing their mother, and they're grieving. If grief doesn't make people do "insane" things, I don't know what does.

DARREN: Booo, I say. Booo! I know that my visceral reaction to the movie is rooted in how and when I saw it: With my mom, when I was home for Christmas from college. We went in expecting a funny/heartwarming family comedy: We got a movie where talented actresses pratfall over spilled food, and then suddenly every things shifts on a dime because CANCER. You're so busy forgetting to laugh that you barely have time to not cry.

Now, cancer plotlines in movies can be incredibly moving. But here, it just feels like a massive bummer airdropped in from out of nowhere. I'm intrigued by your argument that everyone in this movie is acting like a crazy person because they're repressing their grief. But I don't think that really explains the last act of the movie, when everyone becomes a cartoon character. And it also doesn't explain Rachel McAdams, playing the world's least convincing hipster (whoa, sweatpants!). But I don't want to hate on McAdams too much, because she's the most fascinating character in the movie. She hates Sarah Jessica Parker, and she has a weird non-sibling chemistry with Dermot Mulroney: This all feels very grown-up Flowers in the Attic to me.

Am I overanalyzing? I can't help it! You're so right about the cast being great, but The Family Stone itself is such a weird combination of wacky and perfect that they wind up feeling more like a family from a Christmas advertisement. Like, isn't it weird that the family is supposed to be this beacon of liberal tolerance—gay deaf son! Rachel McAdams playing Winona Ryder! Luke Wilson playing Owen Wilson!—but then the end of the movie is the picture of mid-century Americana, everyone happily married and pregnant? The Family Stone tries to have its cake, eat it, smear the cake all over the actors' faces and declare itself a triumph of the human spirit.

SAM: I actually don't think this film is trying to declare itself as anything! I get that it walks this weird line of "is this supposed to be funny or is this supposed to be sad?"—but I think that's what makes it both. The Family Stone is—love squares aside—a very realistic look at a family dynamic in times of coping. Yes, Diane Keaton has cancer, but it never feels schmaltzy. I don't think you're necessarily supposed to cry when you watch it—though if you didn't, I question the existence of your soul, Franich.

I had a similar first experience with the film: Went to see it with the family; was not expecting all the cancer. I didn't love it for that very reason. But upon re-watching, I realized The Family Stone is about funny moments in times of sadness. Honestly? I feel stupid talking so seriously about a movie that I don't feel takes itself too seriously. It's not preaching about the loss of a family member; if anything, it teaches us how not to deal with loss.

And I have to say, I don't think they turn into a Christmas advertisement. Sure, everyone's hair looks great in that final scene—but I think it's also the movie's most depressing moment. It's the picture of a hurting, messed up family. They're not punching each other or laughing or throwing things, but not because they've evolved into the perfect family. It's because the Stones are no longer themselves. Who's to say that Rachel McAdams' character stays with the EMT, or that SJP will even be a member of the family next year? Nobody. In that moment, they're trying to have a good holiday without their matriarch, and they're lost. They'll go back to screaming at each other as soon as possible.

More importantly, how have we not talked about Brian White's chunky sweaters yet? Because: AMAZING.

DARREN: I feel the need to declare that I am not the Grinchiest Grinch on Earth. Last year, I watched It's a Wonderful Life for the first time, and was a blubbery mess for the last twenty minutes. Like, Sam, literally, I was crying for twenty minutes . That hasn't happened since the last time I injured myself playing a sport my parents forced me to play!

So I like what you're saying about the messed-up quality of the Stones. To be honest, I think I'd like the movie more if it doubled down on the grief thing—if you could really feel how Diane Keaton's condition was driving all the members of the family to pretend to be their best selves, until they become their worst selves.

The Family Stone might not be my cup (glass) of tea (eggnog), but I can't get too mad about a movie becoming a new go-to yuletide entertainment. The Franiches were always a Christmas Story family, although at some point my brother and I started watching Scrooged —both of which hail from the '80s. Love, Actually came out more recently, but it's as British as British can be. So even though I don't necessarily approve of vaguely-incestuous sister-swapping, I can support the notion of The Family Stone taking a place in the canon of American Christmas films.

SAM: I would like the record to reflect that one mention of Brian White's sweaters was all it took to open Darren's heart. Because they're that great.

The only other thing I'll say is that I don't disagree with the notion that doubling down on the grief thing would help—yet I'd also hate if the movie did that. Because oddly enough, I find this to be a very fun holiday film. Yes, there's all the grief—but that's just one part of this family's holiday. And while another part involves sister-swapping, so long as it gets me a slap fight between Luke Wilson and Dermot Mulroney, I'm happy.

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DVD & Streaming

The Family Stone

Comedy , Romance

Content Caution

In Theaters

Sarah Jessica Parker as Meredith Morton; Dermot Mulroney as Everett Stone; Rachel McAdams as Amy Stone; Luke Wilson as Ben Stone; Tyrone Giordano as Thad Stone; Elizabeth Reaser as Susannah Stone; Brian J. White as Patrick; Diane Keaton as Sybil Stone; Craig T. Nelson as Kelly Stone; Claire Danes as Julie Morton

Home Release Date

Thomas Bezucha

Distributor

20th Century Fox

Movie Review

Meredith Morton gives a whole new meaning to the word uptight. That means there’s only one thing for a Hollywood screenwriter to do: introduce her to a family that puts the loose in loosey-goosey. Everett Stone brings Meredith home to meet his family at Christmastime, intending to propose to her. But his mean-girl sister, Amy, and laid-back stoner brother, Ben, set about “welcoming” her first.

It’s oil and water. No matter what Meredith does, she just reinforces her image as a tightly wound harpy, which invites Amy and Ben to wind her tighter. Desperate to make a good impression but being driven crazy, Meredith invites her sister, Julie, to come keep her company.

In the meantime, despite the Stones’ apparent bon vivance, tragedy lurks just below the surface with matriarch Sybil’s health. Take Everett’s growing doubts about his relationship with Meredith, throw in her pretty sister and factor in Ben’s sudden attraction to, of all people, Meredith, and you have the makings of an utterly predictable and not very romantic comedy.

Positive Elements

The Stones are a family of free spirits and eccentrics, but they all tolerate each other’s foibles with relatively good grace. Ben at first is all too willing to yank Meredith’s chain, but he eventually comes to feel compassion for her. Sybil and her husband, Kelly, have weathered a past serious illness, and their marriage seems the stronger for it. Son Thad is deaf, and everyone supplements his or her speech with sign language so that Thad can be part of the conversation, even if he’s not being spoken to directly.

Sexual Content

Sybil has a distressingly casual attitude toward casual sex. So casual that she actually disapproves when Meredith refuses to sleep in the same bed with Everett, calling it “silly.” (It should be noted that Meredith’s “stand” results more from queasiness at sleeping with Everett in his childhood bedroom than any moral qualms.) Sybil is fond of using crass sexual terms in front of her family, and picks a particularly colorful one to refer to Amy’s losing her virginity—not disapprovingly, mind you. (Meredith repeats it later.)

Sybil lifts her pajama top to reveal a mastectomy scar. Her husband caresses it to show that he loves her despite the loss of her breast. The two kiss, with sex implied as the camera cuts away.

Thad brings home his homosexual lover, Patrick, and the Stone family celebrates and defends his lifestyle. Indeed, Sybil half-jokingly says she wishes all her sons were gay.

After a night of drunkenness, Meredith wakes up in Ben’s bed, thinking she’s had sex with him. (They haven’t, although several people think they have.) A sleazy sight gag involving an erection and other conversations about sex round things out.

Violent Content

Beyond a few pratfalls, Meredith slaps Ben. Ben and Everett get in a fistfight and wrestle on the floor, bloodying each other’s faces.

Crude or Profane Language

One use of the euphemism “friggin.” One use of the s-word and a handful of other swear words. Meredith misuses God’s name at least eight times, and Sybil adds “d–n” to her profanity three times. Jesus’ name is abused once. Sybil apparently says a “very bad word” in sign language, too.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Ben takes Meredith to a bar, where she proceeds to get extremely drunk. Ben also drinks, and their table is lined with empty beer bottles. Meredith buys a round of beers for the entire bar and later says they should try to “score some pot.” In another example of casual parenting Ben smokes marijuana from a pipe while talking with his dad, which leads Sybil to ask Ben, “You and Daddy have fun getting stoned?” (Dad didn’t partake, but neither did he object.) Several people have wine with a meal.

Other Negative Elements

The only “normal” and well-adjusted couple in this story is the gay one. And that says a lot about what the filmmakers think about homosexuality. The Stones emphatically state that homosexuality is not a choice, and even though Meredith doesn’t mean to be disrespectful when broaching the topic of homosexual couples adopting children, she’s portrayed as an intolerant prude for having any concerns at all. Her concerns, for the record, are logistical ones, not moral ones. She’s worried about the layer of difficulty homosexuality adds to one’s life in our current culture.

It’s implied that the only way Meredith can loosen up is by getting drunk.

The Family Stone tries very hard—too hard—to be a feel-good Christmas movie. Instead, we’re “treated” to a series of nails-on-the-blackboard moments. This story had potential, but it fails many times on the most basic level. To start with, you wonder what Everett ever saw in the insufferably uptight Meredith. There is not for one moment an emotional closeness between them. Various people say and do things, not because they logically grow out of their character, but because they’re needed merely to advance the story. Really, who would feel free to invite her sister to someone else’s house for Christmas without asking first? But how else were they going to get the “other woman” into the story?

The film’s casual attitude toward illicit sex grates on the nerves far worse than sloppy storytelling, though. Hearing a mom crudely joke about her daughter losing her virginity had me cringing. There is also the not-so-subtle glorification of homosexuality. (Director Thomas Bezucha’s only previous film is a gay-themed romantic comedy.) Take all this, factor in the drug abuse and the profanity, and I can only conclude that this Stone deserves to sink like one.

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Sarah Jessica Parker Answers Almost Every Question We Have About The Family Stone

My favorite genre of movie is “bustling, dramatic upper-middle-class white family loses their minds during one particularly charged weekend.” The Family Stone — released in 2005 to middling reviews — is this genre’s crowning achievement. Sarah Jessica Parker stars as the career-driven Meredith Morton, who spends Christmas with her boyfriend Everett’s (Dermot Mulroney) New England family. Meredith’s nervousness reads as iciness from the moment Everett’s car pulls into the Stone’s driveway, and the family immediately circles the wagons when they see that their prodigal son has decided to marry her. If Everett’s mother Sybil ( Diane Keaton ) isn’t undercutting her every action, his younger sister Amy ( Rachel McAdams ) sips coffee and sets traps for Meredith in every conversation. Eventually, Meredith calls for backup: She calls for her sister Julie ( Claire Danes ), and the Stone family is immediately smitten with the more outgoing Morton.

I mean, there’s really no smooth way to say this next part: Everett, boneheaded, falls for Julie. Meredith, against her better judgement, warms to Everett’s weed-smoking, sweatpants-wearing brother Ben (Luke Wilson). The whole family is reeling from the news that Sybil’s breast cancer has returned. There’s a deeply uncomfortable dinner scene where Meredith is cluelessly homophobic, and another scene where she accidentally points to a black character as a charades clue for The Bride Wore Black . Stunningly, the only set piece missing here is a beloved family dog.

And yet I love this movie unironically. I watch it every Christmas. I watch it even when it’s not Christmas. I love Rachel McAdams’s scowl. I love Diane Keaton’s pristine white button-up, and the way she wears it under a frumpy robe. I love Luke Wilson’s oversize North Face parka, which he definitely could not afford. I love that Mulroney’s character is named Everett, because that’s my cousin’s name. Also, The Family Stone is fun! And it’s the rare studio movie that features three women, and, instead of begging you to like them, presents them with sharp sides and questionable intentions intact.

Every year I basically die because no one wants to listen to me talk about this movie at length. (The militia of Family Stone warriors is small, and it’s mostly just me and Bobby Finger .) So I decided to talk to Sarah Jessica Parker about it.

Can you give me a sense of what your life was like when you signed on to The Family Stone ? I think you were winding down work on Sex and the City . I’m not sure if I had finished Sex and the City yet, actually. When I first met [director] Tom Bezucha and the offer came, I had recently finished. I was feeling good. I had just completed a long run as part of a project that I was proud of and had obviously changed the course of my life. I felt very privileged, and it felt like we were able to stop [the show] in a way that we all felt good about.

But also I did have a young son, and I was looking forward very much to being his parent and having real time with him. When Family Stone came up, I remember that I had some time between wrapping Sex and the City the series and starting a movie. I knew my son was going to come with me, which was really important. That’s kind of the beauty of movies: They’re a finite period. While they are intense and all-consuming, it’s kind of like a window. As a parent who wanted to spend time with my child, it was ideal.

What was your meeting with Tom like? I was excited that he wanted me to play the part. He had very specific ideas about this character. He offered a really nice challenge. He wanted her to be skilled in ways that I had not been onscreen. There was a sort of chilly quality to her, where her neuroses were so evident, and yet she works so hard to mask that. She was wound so tight.

The way she moves and behaves, it’s all very restrained. There was also that stillness. Carrie Bradshaw was very physical. She moved around a lot; she gesticulated a lot. Hands were an important part of the way she told stories, and Tom really didn’t want that, which was exciting to me. We really did talk a lot about that. Even in the process of shooting, there would be times that he would remind me of some of those original landmarks that we were shooting for.

Last night I read some old reviews about the movie, and I’ve become so defensive of Meredith. People call her unlikable or shrill, which are obviously very loaded labels. I think she’s just really nervous — who can’t relate to that? Did it bother you, how she was received? I don’t read reviews, luckily. I’m always curious when there is a general opinion about a woman not being likable. I take personal offense to it, as well. I really struggle with how to have those conversations with people and not be defensive, but actually talk about what those words mean, and why qualities that are called unlikable when they are attributed to a female character in cinema are not at all applied to a man. I’ve had that even recently with Divorce . It’s so curious. It’s not without frustration on my part.

I didn’t think she was unlikable at all. Especially in romantic comedies, there’s this idea about likable, relatable gals. I think it does a huge disservice to the billions of woman who are all wonderfully different. Somebody is nervous, or lacks confidence? I found none of it unlikable. In fact, I found her compelling. I was drawn to her because of her exhibited neuroses.

I think Meredith was probably somebody who had very high standards for herself and lived in a world that was about discipline, appearance, success, ambition, and personal achievement. I think it made her actually quite touching. I really liked her, and I was sorry that she suffered so much, that she was so hard on herself and so hard on others. She was making an attempt to have a full life, a life that she thought was a portrait of success. I found those qualities very human.

On the other side of this dynamic is Diane Keaton. Were you nervous? Was it hard to not take her attitude with your character personally? I was nervous about it. She and I actually had worked together before; we did First Wives Club . I didn’t spend a lot of time on camera with her, but I had been around her a little bit. I was nervous, but at least I had some exchanges with her previous to that. She was very nervous-making. She was tough on me.

Tough how? I wasn’t certain in the beginning whether she was being personally tough on me, whether it was her relationship to the character. I came to understand that it was very much about the dynamic that the characters, what are they engaging in. She was tough on me in a way, but it was very specific to the on-camera story, and not personal and not mean. It was a huge joy to play those scenes with her, and wonderfully terrifying.

I loved working with her because I learned a lot about … I got — it was sort of a backstage pass to better understanding why I loved her so as an actor, and I do, and have for many, many years.

Can you tell me what you appreciate about her as an actor, about her process? She’s very particular about the work. She worked extremely hard. She asks a lot of questions. She’s serious about the work. There’s a lightness to her. There’s a sort of soufflé thing about Diane Keaton. She has this really buoyant — do you know what I mean?

Yeah. She’s witty and she’s clever and she’s seemingly scattered in a way. But that does not actually speak to the enormous intelligence and seriousness that she brings to her work. It’s not an accident, her work. It’s not easy. It’s thoughtful and considered.

I hope I’m not saying something I shouldn’t, but she wears headphones on the set. To stay focused, she’ll wear headphones basically until they call action. I think it’s a very interesting way to stay focused. A set is wonderfully chaotic. There’s a lot going on, and a lot of last-minute adjustments, people talking and going over lines, all the various disciplines on the set taking care of what they need to do. It’s a strangely chaotic place considering what has to happen the second the camera rolls, which is that everything goes quiet and still.

Who do you think was more vicious, the Diane Keaton character or the Rachel McAdams character? You probably know the movie better than I do, I’ve only seen it once. My guess is that the mother remains the most important person, the person whose approval you most need. I think that family, when they circled the wagons, is very intense and formidable combatants, but the gravitas of a mother kind of eclipses [anyone else].

How many times did the three of you have to fall into that egg dish, the breakfast strata? Many times. Many times.

Please tell me everything about it. I know we had a bunch of costumes ready. We did it a lot because it was covered from a bunch of different angles. As always, before those scenes, it’s a lot of discussion about how it’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen. You try to control as much as you can simply I think for a camera to be able to capture it. But it has to feel completely out of control and reckless and spontaneous.

I was absolutely completely covered with it. I recall going in for coverage, and having to stay covered in it. Like, I couldn’t clean up. I had to stay because they were going in for tighter shots, and we couldn’t try to re-create how it had spilled on me. I spent many, many hours staying in that outfit.

I love that stuff. I love falling. I love all the physical stuff. I love props. For me, the more real all that can be, the better the work is, the better I feel like I’m actually having the experience, so I don’t want anyone else to do it for me. I don’t care if I’m covered in some Swedish egg casserole or whatever that was. I definitely know that I was the last of the day. I know that they covered me last. I spent many hours in some version of that, but it didn’t really bother me.

After the strata scene, I think the second most infamous is the dinner scene: Meredith has a really hard time asking Everett’s gay brother and his partner if they’d really want a gay son. Was that excruciating to film, someone who’s wrong but having such a hard time explaining even what she’s thinking? Yeah, it was excruciating because of the silences, you know? I didn’t want anything about that to be easy, and I didn’t want it to feel familiar. You do so many takes of scenes like that because you’re moving around the table very slowly with the camera so that everybody’s covered in the scene, and that really is a scene where you really need to be on people at different times — in the editing room, you need all those choices.

So, yes, it was, because there’s nobody to help you. You really are alone in it. She’s trying so hard to defend an argument — to course correct really quickly — but it’s a long-held belief. She isn’t arriving at this as a conversation piece. It’s not like you’re joining in and saying, “I just wondered, ‘Did you ever think that maybe it might be easier if you hadn’t made that choice, or if this wasn’t your life?’” That is much more painful because it was so revealing about her, but also she was so much on her own. And, yes, all the actors were looking at me. I wanted to feel isolated, so it was excruciating, but it felt appropriately so.

Was Meredith’s tic always the throat-clearing? Yes. From the beginning, I think it was written into the script.

Do you remember the cast doing a lot of improv, or finding things on the day? I don’t think there’s a lot of improv. Diane can do it and does it beautifully. I tend not to because I think it’s hard to do it really, really well. I’m sure you’ve seen many cases when people think they’re good at it. It’s sort of awful when someone isn’t great at it and doesn’t add something meaningful.

Would you be mad if your own sister stole your fiancé? I guess it would depend on the circumstances.

What!! I mean, I don’t know. I guess that would be pretty hurtful. You mean like a current fiancé, not someone that is broken up, but that somebody who is in fact, to your knowledge, your fiancé?

Yes. And you are engaged?

Mm-hmm. Just like in the movie. Well, yes. It would be very upsetting. That would be awful. Also, it’s very hard to imagine that my sister — I have many sisters. I can’t imagine any of them doing that. Our tastes are very different, let’s just start with that. Yeah, I think that would be probably really problematic for everybody, for the entire family.

I want to go back to the kitchen scene for a second because that’s maybe my favorite line reading in the movie: You’re covered in the food and sort of whimper, “What’s so great about you guys?” I don’t even remember when I say it. You have to remind me, I’m so sorry.

No, you’re fine! I literally watch this movie every year, so I’m very familiar with it. Maybe I should watch it again. Maybe my daughters would love it. They’re 9. Are they too young, or are they the right age?

I think that’s the perfect age. I think it’s totally appropriate. You have to show it to them. But anyway, it’s when the strata has just dropped in the kitchen. You’re looking at Diane, sort of like, Why would I even want to be a part of this family? “What’s so great about you guys?” Diane says, “Well, you know, we’re all we’ve got.” Right, yeah. Thank you.

I’m truly recounting this movie to you, I’m so sorry. Oh my God, no, thank you.

Since you have kids, have you ever considered that maybe you’ll become this Sybil character when or if they bring someone home for the holidays? You know, I thought a lot about my children and their romantic life. Matthew [ Broderick , her husband] and I would do our very best to be decent and civilized and hospitable to somebody who we’d think is not deserving or worthy of our children.

I’ve also said to [her son] James Wilkie, “You know, when you go to college, you can come home” … or when he’s married, when he’s a grown-up person and he has a romantic partner. I would tell him he was going to marry a woman named Mary, and I have no idea why. I was like, “You understand you have to come home every Friday for dinner, with or without your partner.” I always imagine that it will be like, How could this have happened? That they’d be the most perfect, the most suitable choice, that we’d get so lucky.

I hope that we’re a house that our kids want to come home to, and that people want to spend time with us for holidays. It would be a thrill. I don’t know what you do if you don’t care for a child’s romantic selection. I don’t know how you’re supposed to get through that. Looking back, I know for sure that I brought some people home that, later on, my brothers and parents revealed to me they were so relieved when we broke up.

I love that. But they were very generous [with the guests, at the time].

Would you, Sarah Jessica, pick the Luke Wilson character or the Dermot Mulroney character? This is very hard because I love those actors so much.

Okay, but there’s definitely a wrong answer here. Do you want to tell me what my answer should be? Do you want me to pick Luke?

Yeah. Only because Everett was consistently the worst. Sorry. That dinner scene — he abandons Meredith in that dinner scene! He doesn’t even try to help her. I could not respect him after that. Well, you know more than I do. Of course she should end up with Luke. Of course she should!

Luke has a line, he says, “You have a freak flag, Meredith, but you just don’t fly it.” I wanted to hear what that advice means to you. I guess what he meant, and what it would mean to me, is you’re not allowing yourself to be your unique self. You’re not allowing yourself to be flawed or wrong or silly or ridiculous or vulnerable. You’re not allowing yourself to be your true person. I guess that’s certainly what I would mean if I said that. What do you think changed in Meredith?

I think it’s what you said, that she’s just relaxed and herself. A lot of the anxiety comes from not doing that, which I think is what makes the performance so great. Well thank you.

As I’ve said, this is my favorite holiday movie and I watch it all the time, but especially this time of year. Do you have a favorite holiday movie? We don’t watch a lot of movies at Christmas. It’s very strange. I didn’t grow up watching movies at Christmas. At Christmas, we always went to whatever the big movie was, as a family.

Actually, we used to watch — now, I’m remembering this — when you could start renting movies on your own we always watched Albert Brooks’s movies at Christmas. Always.

Which ones? We watched Defending Your Life . We watched Modern Romance . Real Life . We were obsessed with Albert Brooks, and we watched them over and over again.

Well, thank you so much for talking to me and letting me indulge — Thank you. I feel like you know so much more. But mostly thank you for loving Meredith. It’s so touching and so nice to hear.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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You’ve Been Getting ‘The Family Stone’ All Wrong

Next year all our troubles will be out of sight... right?

The Big Picture

Queer-centric holiday romcoms like Happiest Season or Single All the Way offer a more inclusive representation of queer people during typically heteronormative holiday traditions.
The Family Stone delivers a deep and personal experience of going home for the holidays as a queer family member, resonating with those navigating adulthood and their queer identities.
The film's queer subtext goes beyond its openly gay characters, exploring themes of identity, acceptance, and the importance of love and authenticity in a flawed but lovable modern family.

When it comes to queer holiday movies , for the longest time The Family Stone was the best we ever had. One advantage of the streaming age is that it has led to the beginnings of a more inclusive cultural landscape, specifically around the holidays. Indeed, the release of queer-centric holiday romcoms like Happiest Season or Single All the Way can provide a much better mirror into the lives and experiences of queer people during celebrations of typically heteronormative holiday traditions. But while it’s easier to have a romantic comedy with queer lead characters released exclusively on a streaming platform, it’s still a rarity within the mainstream world of theatrical films. Before streaming was so mainstream, though, The Family Stone brought the experience of going home for the holidays as a queer family member to the big screen.

The Family Stone

An uptight, conservative businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.

What Is 'The Family Stone' About?

Released in 2005, The Family Stone follows the eponymous Stone family, headed by Sybil ( Diane Keaton ) and Kelly ( Craig T. Nelson ), as each of their five grown children and their respective partners and families come home to celebrate the holidays. Susannah ( Elisabeth Reaser ) is married with a child and a second on the way. Ben ( Luke Wilson ) is a hippie-ish documentary filmmaker in Berkeley. Thad ( Tyrone Giordano ) is an architect preparing to adopt a child with his partner Patrick ( Brian J. White ), and Amy ( Rachel McAdams ) is a teacher. But we mustn’t forget golden-boy middle child, Everett ( Dermot Mulroney ), an NYC businessman who has returned home with the woman he intends to marry, Meredith ( Sarah Jessica Parker ), to seek out his grandmother’s wedding ring that he was promised. There’s one small problem: Meredith’s more uptight, cold, and conservative demeanor immediately clashes with the warm, liberal antics of the Stone household, causing swift tension and pandemonium.

Watching 'The Family Stone' During the Holidays Became Deeply Personal

I was single digits when The Family Stone was first released and it was something I watched with my mother once every few years as I got older—but was never a film I became overly attached to. Flash forward to the year I turned 19 when I was an anxious college student trying to navigate adulthood for the first time. It’s commonplace for us to acknowledge that children mature and grow at different rates, but a concept we don’t readily consider or accept for young adults. In other words, I might have been 19, but I still felt very much like a child and did not feel at all equipped to handle the world that other adults were throwing at me. As if that time of life isn’t complicated and emotionally messy for just about everyone, it’s especially difficult when that time accompanies one’s coming-of-age as a queer person . Suffice it to say that, by the end of that year, I was depressed, exhausted, and lonely even in the most crowded of rooms. Re-enter The Family Stone .

The holidays are a difficult time when you find yourself no longer a child but not yet a grown-up. Childhood traditions start to lose a bit of meaning and the illusion that other adults around you always had it together has most likely shattered. In my case, my beloved grandmother, my Nanny, passed away the year I turned 18, and Christmas never quite felt the same again. Everyone around me seemed fine to adapt and keep up the charade as if nothing had happened, but that didn’t work for me and only contributed to my impending young adult depression. By the following year, nothing was working to get me out of the bell jar and into the holiday spirit—except watching The Family Stone over and over again.

'The Family Stone' Is Riddled with Queer Subtext

Although it might seem to be a given that the film possesses elements of queerness just by the fact that it features openly gay supporting characters, a rarity for a mainstream film with A-list actors in 2005, The Family Stone ’s queerness goes much deeper than that. 17 years later, the film’s heart and tone still speak to something so integral to the queer experience, especially around the holidays. And ironically enough, barely any of that heart and tone even includes the actual gay characters.

There’s the uncomfortable experience of spending Christmas with your boyfriend's large cliquey family for the first time, as Meredith does, which is hard enough without already knowing they’re going to dislike you for your icy exterior. There’s the realization that Meredith and Everett are only together because they’re both trying hard to be people they’re not. There’s Rachel McAdams who shines as the bitchy younger sister who only exists to stir the pot (a character that undoubtedly resonates the most with many gay men over the holidays, forced to participate in their family’s heterosexist traditions). There’s Luke Wilson as the brother who encourages Meredith to stop screwing the lid on so tight and to let her freak flag fly. And if the film wasn’t already rich enough with gay subtext, The Family Stone proudly uses Judy Garland’s original performance of “ Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas ” from Meet Me in St. Louis , which contains the original lyrics that were infamously rewritten at the behest of Frank Sinatra who believed them to be too depressing.

But any appreciation of The Family Stone would be remiss without mentioning its infamous scene when at Christmas Eve dinner Meredith attempts to engage prospective gay parents Thad and Patrick in a debate over nature vs. nurture after her sister Julie’s ( Claire Danes ) questions about race were met with smiles and acceptance. Things go embarrassingly awry when Sybil jokes that she desperately hoped all her sons would be gay, which prompts Meredith to reply that she would think any parent would want a normal child. The film’s most important moment comes after Meredith storms off, when Sybil throws a utensil to get the attention of her deaf son, telling him that she loves him and that he is more normal than any asshole sitting at that table.

Personality Conflicts and Secrets Come to a Head

You thought that’s where the cringing and second-hand embarrassment ended? Well, think again. As if that wasn’t a brutal enough Christmas Eve family dinner, next comes Christmas morning in the Stone household, where a hungover Meredith mistakenly believes herself to have slept with Ben. Meanwhile, Amy’s old flame Brad ( Paul Schneider ) appears at the house, having been personally invited there by an inebriated Meredith at a local bar the night before to rekindle his relationship with Amy. Everything comes to a head when Sybil relents and gives her mother’s wedding ring as promised to Everett, and Meredith—expecting a proposal to come—impatiently declares in front of the entire living room, “No, I will not marry you!” The kicker is that Everett didn’t even ask, and Meredith finally has the breakdown we’ve all been waiting for that culminates in Parker’s immaculate and teary delivery of the line, “Isn’t there anybody that loves me?”

Whether Ben and Meredith actually slept together (they didn’t) turns out to be irrelevant, because as he soon points out to his brother in an altercation that concludes with the collapse of the kitchen table holding the evening’s turkey, “You don’t love her, man.” What makes the climax of The Family Stone so compelling, and by extension so riddled with queer subtext, is that Everett and Meredith are both trying to be people they’re not. Even before the morning’s pandemonium breaks out, Sybil makes Everett promise to stop trying to be so perfect all the time. And as Ben teaches Meredith, there’s value in releasing ourselves from the obligation of who we’ve always thought ourselves to be. Maybe there’s a more secure and less anxious version of each other that exists beyond the facade we cling to in a desperate attempt to be loved.

'The Family Stone' Portrays a Flawed but Loveable Modern Family

The Stones are deeply flawed, as is any family , but what makes them so compelling and loveable—especially to queer viewers—is their ability to still love each other wholly and unconditionally despite their flaws. It’s evident from the moment Ben arrives home when Sybil informs him, “No smoking pot in the house, I mean it this time,” followed by a smile and a hug. Liberal and left-wing as they may be, the Stones teach their audience every time that the most powerful thing we can do with our lives is to put aside greed and expectation to follow love and desire. The film is somewhat dated in that it barely uses its actual queer characters to showcase this message, and it’s hard not to raise an eyebrow by 2022 standards as we see the gay brother watch from the car as Everett is the one to leave behind one version of life for another. (That is, Claire Danes over Sarah Jessica Parker.) But The Family Stone nonetheless accomplishes its mission of displaying a 21st-century family in all its messy, inclusive glory. (Oh yes, did I mention that Diane Keaton is dying and this is her last Christmas with the family? Grab the freaking tissues.)

Watching The Family Stone on a loop that year and every year since has allowed me to imagine that other, happier versions of life exist outside the one I might be experiencing. There may be new and exciting traditions lying in the Christmases ahead that would replace the childhood ones that had withered and died. Even though you may never stop missing the people you’ve lost at certain times of the year, you’re allowed to acknowledge and be kind to those wounds. Everybody is figuring everything out for themselves day by day, hoping for the moment when things feel like they make sense. And most importantly, that life is far too short not to be pursuing the things and the people that make us happy. Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.

The Family Stone is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.

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The Family Stone Review

16 Dec 2005

103 minutes

Family Stone, The

Spending what Americans call “the holidays” with one’s own family can be traumatic enough, so it’s a bit odd that anyone would want to torture themselves further by seeing movies about other people’s Christmas or Thanksgiving gatherings. A decade ago, Jodie Foster assembled an eclectic cast (including, coincidentally, Claire Danes) for the hit-and-miss comedy drama Home For The Holidays; Thomas Bezucha aims for much the same territory with his sophomore effort as writer-director — and manages to score more hits than misses.

The Family Stone comprises bohemian parents Sybil and Kelly (Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson), devoted daughters Amy and Susannah (Rachel McAdams and Elizabeth Reaser), and three sons: a deaf gay (Tyrone Giordano) with a black boyfriend (Brian White), a feckless stoner (Luke Wilson), and an uptight businessman, Everett (Dermot Mulroney), whose new girlfriend rubs everyone up the wrong way from the moment she brings her uptight, Upper-West-Side attitude to the vast New England family home. The family is so close-knit, poor Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) is virtually doomed before she steps out of the car, watched by the crowd at the kitchen window. For all their tolerant values and political correctness, the Stones have mercilessly pre-judged Meredith — much to the annoyance of Everett, who has marriage in mind.

It’s a recipe with ingredients taken from everything from Meet The Fockers to Sweet Home Alabama. But Bezucha is thankfully less concerned with exploring familiar fish-out of-water themes than breathing life into multi-faceted, flawed characters, who reveal new complexities as the story progresses. Likewise, his commendable script is mostly successful at juggling elements of comedy, drama, romance, and even trickier prospects such as poignancy and farce.

Only twice does the film stretch credibility, and thus patience: first, when Meredith finally frees her “inner freak” after a few beers with Luke Wilson’s affable Ben; and later, when the arrival of her down-to-earth sister Julie (Danes) sends the plot in yet another direction. And, talking of direction, Bezucha’s is far less technically assured than his writing, but the uniformly high quality of the performances — Keaton and Parker in particular — smooths over the cracks.

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Produced by, released by, the family stone (2005), directed by thomas bezucha / bezucha thomas.

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Synopsis by Mark Deming

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‘The Family Stone’ Movie Review (2005)

By Laremy Legel

I really wanted to hate The Family Stone based on the trailers alone. It’s your typical schlock preview with the prerequisite laughing, crying and dancing around to old time love songs. Basically it’s annoying as all hell and made me want to do anything with my evening other than see it. Kudos to the marketing department there. The good news is the film is not schlock; in fact it’s a damn decent effort that’s worthy of a visit to your local multi-plex.

The plot of The Family Stone is something we’ve all faced in our lives, the meeting of potential in-laws. Dermot Mulroney plays Everett Stone, a gentleman squire bringing his lady (Sarah Jessica Parker) home for the holidays. Sarah Parker (sorry, you only get one middle name usage per review) plays the annoying potential fiance whom the family naturally hates. You’d hate her too as she’s pretty unlikable in much of the film. She’s the opposite of her “Sex and the City” persona, instead of smooth and sultry we get awkward and obtuse. Mulroney and Parker do well enough here, nothing to write home about but they don’t drag down the film.

In the first five minutes of The Family Stone we learn one of the Stone family members is a deaf gay fellow who’s involved in an interracial relationship. Tyrone Giordano played this innovative and refreshing role and he’s asked to pull off much of the drama of The Family Stone too. The other members of the family include Rachel McAdams as hateful little sister Amy who continues to work off her debt owed to me from The Notebook . Still about eight movies to go Rachel, keep plugging away. The dad is played by Craig T. Nelson and though he’s only asked to “act” for about six minutes Craig Nelson does okay overall too.

I should point out right about now that The Family Stone is a familial comedy as opposed to a romantic comedy. They put the word “family” right there in the title so you shouldn’t be too shocked. It’s familial in the sense that it portrays with great accuracy the love and nerve grating effect that families have on all of us. Diane Keaton plays the momma of the family in an extremely well fleshed out and realistic turn. Unlike most holiday movies you won’t find an angel behind curtain number one. I only have one more cast note (c’mon, gimme a break, it was a huge ensemble cast) and it involves the cherubic Claire Danes. She was fairly average in Shopgirl but back to full speed delightful in The Family Stone . Welcome back Claire! Take a seat by the fire and have some cocoa.

Also of note is one of the producers of The Family Stone is Michael London, not Michael Landon who is in fact quite deceased. There was some confusion in the audience beforehand about the producer which I’d hate to see spread like wildfire throughout the country. The producer of this one is fully living, tell a buddy.

The small flaws I found in the movie were of a logical nature. Certain things simply don’t happen in relationships, or if they do it’s not nearly so tidy. I’m not going to get into spoilers but it’s fair to say there is a smidge of Hollywood magic sprinkled on this one that’s entertaining but in no way pertains to the world in which we live. There is also a drop of melodrama that’s too much for me but I’m a forgiving type of guy. The Family Stone is worth seeing in the theater regardless of the marketing. Give the film a chance and you’ll find a few laughs and perhaps a tear or two as well provided the surgeons haven’t removed those tear ducts just yet.

Like Laremy’s work? Buy his book here .

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The Family Stone Parent Guide

It's a frosty Christmas for the Stone family when the parents (Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson) and their divergent adult children gather together and give a chilly reception to Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) who is threatening to marry Everett, the eldest son (Dermot Mulroney).

Release date December 15, 2005

Run Time: 103 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by rod gustafson.

A few decades ago the holiday season featured movies about people facing poverty and despair. Today, the silver screen is usually dressed in dysfunctional families facing enormous stress as they try to eat one dinner together. Such is the situation in this film, where the annual gathering of the Stones will make your worst nightmare before Christmas seem like a sugarplum fairy.

Sybil Stone (Diane Keaton), a controlling yet dedicated mother, and her husband Kelly (Craig T. Nelson), are putting the finishing touches on the festive celebration, with the help of their daughter Amy (Rachel McAdams), who is the only Stone sibling still at home. Joining the trio for the special day is their gay, hearing impaired son Thad (Tyrone Giordano) and his companion Patrick (Brian White); their married, pregnant, and peacemaking daughter Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) with her young daughter Elizabeth (Savannah Stehlin); and their laid back single son, Ben (Luke Wilson). The last to pull into the driveway is their oldest son, the suit-and-tie wearing Everett (Dermot Mulroney), and his girlfriend Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker)—the latter being the catalyst who will get the movie truly rolling.

After meeting Meredith, it is evident why she is difficult to love at first sight. Her already forthright demeanor is only enhanced by her nervous anxiety over dealing with people she knows dislike her. Requesting sleeping accommodations separate from Everett’s (she is uncomfortable sharing a bed with him at his parents’ home), she puts an already angry Amy on the couch. Her attempt to apologize the next morning only makes things worse. Caught between a rock-hearted host and a hard bed, Meredith moves to a nearby inn and asks her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to give up her holiday plans and hop on a bus to come and provide emotional support.

However, one more person in an already too-full house can’t prevent the “big” meltdown that occurs over Christmas Eve dinner when Meredith begins questioning Thad about his gender preference. Developing into an impassioned discussion about the influence of genetics and environment on sexual orientation, the meal ends with a heated argument and an extra helping of hurt feelings.

Putting this shattered family back together is going to take a miracle, and fortunately the script provides a few—along with filling in some missing pieces with a couple of other storylines.

If you’re looking for a charming Christmas comedy, don’t expect to find it here. This movie deals with some very mature topics, mostly of a sexual nature. Although it addresses many of these issues with an insight and maturity rarely found in this genre, parents should be aware this Santa’s sack contains discussion starters on everything from homosexual couples adopting children to what a mastectomy looks like.

After the dishes are washed and the wrapping paper settles, The Family Stone’s powerful and sincere performances provide some provoking food for thought. Yet, if you’ve ever had to spend Christmas with a house full of relatives—some of whom you love and others you are trying to tolerate—this movie may hit a little too close to home for the holidays.

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Rod Gustafson

The family stone rating & content info.

Why is The Family Stone rated PG-13? The Family Stone is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for some sexual content including dialogue, and drug references.

This dialogue-heavy film, which is a near-continuous series of arguments, deals with topics that will be difficult for pre-teens to follow. Many moderate profanities are included, along with a couple of slang terms for sex—one in ASL (American Sign Language). Physical altercation is limited to a short moment when adult brothers fight with each other, resulting in a couple of small head wounds. Homosexual and heterosexual relationships are explored, but there are no explicit sexual discussions or portrayals. Some characters drink beer in a bar; one becomes intoxicated and makes a reference to “wanting some pot.”

Page last updated February 13, 2012

The Family Stone Parents' Guide

How did Meredith’s nervous anxiety about spending time with the Stones make her appear even more abrasive? What, if anything, might Sybil and Amy have done to ease the tension?

During dinner, Meredith questions Thad about his sexual orientation. Do you think she was honestly looking for an opinion, or merely wanting a way of voicing her own? What does Sybil’s remarks reveal about how she has raised her sons? Do you think there is anything in a person’s “environment” which may factor into their sexual orientation, or does it have any affect at all?

The Stones are very accepting of Thad’s lifestyle, yet they are intolerant of Meredith. Is this a double standard?

The most recent home video release of The Family Stone movie is May 2, 2006. Here are some details…

The Family Stone comes hurtling onto DVD in either widescreen or full screen presentations with the following bonus extras: Two audio commentaries (one by actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Dermot Mulroney, and the other by writer/producer Thomas Bezucha, producer Michael London, editor Jeffery Ford and production designer Jane Ann Stewart), six deleted scenes (with optional commentary), a behind-the-scenes featurette, excerpts from the Fox Movie Channel casting session and world premiere, a question and answer session with the cast, and a gag reel. Audio tracks are available in English (5.1 Dolby digital) French (Dolby Surround) and Spanish (Dolby Surround), with subtitles in English and Spanish.

Family Stone, The (United States, 2005)

It's a tough thing for a dysfunctional-family-at-Christmas movie to avoid doses of melodrama, and it's fair to say that The Family Stone contains its share. But the nice thing about the movie is that it avoids overt manipulation. There's some - it's virtually impossible for a movie of this sort to generate an emotional response without any - but it's kept to a minimum and doesn't come at the viewer like a sledgehammer. Instead of having to sit through a Terms of Endearment scene, we are offered something more tasteful.

Meeting one's prospective in-laws is always a daunting prospect, but combine the following factors - you're going to meet them all at once, you're not comfortable with large family gatherings, and it's Christmas - and you have a recipe for a really bad holiday. For Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker), this is a nightmare come to life. Meredith is a repressed, buttoned down type with impeccable manners. People warm to her like they do to a glacier. She has accompanied her boyfriend, Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney), home for the holidays. In addition to introducing her to his family, he's thinking of proposing marriage.

The Stone family reacts to Meredith's arrival like a pack of wolves, and they pounce with fangs bared. The worst of the lot is Everett's youngest sister, Amy (Rachel McAdams), who has a barbed comment for every occasion. Sybil (Diane Keaton), Everett's mother, isn't much better - she instantly recognizes that Meredith isn't right for her son. Everett's dad, Kelly (Craig T. Nelson); deaf brother, Thad (Tyrone Giordano); and pregnant sister, Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser), take a wait-and-see approach. Only Ben (Luke Wilson), the black sheep of the Stone clan, seems willing to cut Meredith a break. After less than a day with the Stones, the frazzled outsider, feeling the pressure, checks out of the house and into a nearby inn. She also calls in reinforcements in the person of her sister, Julie (Claire Danes). What proceeds to complicate matters is that Everett finds himself attracted to Julie, while Ben and Meredith discover a connection when they attempt to fly her "freak flag."

I have seen The Family Stone categorized in some places as a "screwball comedy," but this is an inappropriate label. There are a few mildly comedic moments sprinkled throughout the production, but this belongs in the drama category. Laughter, although it may occur (and hopefully in all the right places), is not the primary goal of writer/director Thomas Bezucha. He wants The Family Stone to touch a deeper chord. For the most part, he succeeds. There's nothing extraordinary or groundbreaking about the film, but it understands what it's doing, and does it effectively. The key for a movie like this is getting the characters to seem more like people than caricatures, and Bezucha acoomplishes that.

The film comes with an epilogue, and it is needed because not all the subplots can be wrapped up in the three-day span that restricts the primary action. This five-minute sequence, which offers closure to almost everything, has an underlying sense of poignancy that the director could have mishandled. The atmosphere is ripe for manipulation of the kind that will ensure there's not a dry eye in the house. But Bezucha is restrained. He's smart, recognizing that we don't need violins to feel the undercurrent.

The talented cast helps. Sarah Jessica Parker, finding that there is life after Sex in the City , has no difficulty with Meredith's arc. Of all the characters in the movie, she undergoes the biggest transformation, and Parker aces it. Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson settle comfortably into the matriarch/patriarch roles, and there is one especially touching scene between the two of them. Luke Wilson brings his special brand of relaxed, "don't worry, be happy" performance to the proceedings. Rachel McAdams, 2005's "it" girl (see also Wedding Crashers and Red Eye ), imparts a dose of charisma. Claire Danes, on the comeback trail, is appealing. And Dermot Mulroney needs little more to get by than his good looks.

It's worth mentioning that this is the best adult holiday film in a while. (Of course, competition has been thin - Christmas with the Kranks , Surviving Christmas , etc.) The box office life of The Family Stone will be short. The movie is so drenched in Christmas spirit that it will seem a little stale once the holidays are past. Even taking this into consideration, it's worth two hours for those who appreciate this kind of workmanlike, low-risk drama.

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The family stone.

Sybil Stone (Diane Keaton, "Something's Gotta Give") harbors a secret as she awaits her family's gathering for the Christmas holidays in the old New England homestead so she's glad that her children are focused on the imminent arrival of their brother's uptight New Yorker girlfriend whom only Amy (Rachel McAdams, "Red Eye") has met and instantly despised. Sybil keeps a more open mind, but when Meredith Morton's (Sarah Jessica Parker, HBO's "Sex and the City") attempts to blend into the family are like oil's with water, Sybil is terrified that Everett (Dermot Mulroney, "The Wedding Date") is going to ask her for "The Family Stone."

Laura's Review: C+

Writer/director Thomas Bezucha's ("Big Eden") leap into bigger budget filmmaking is blessed with some terrific performances that help, but cannot hide, some severe problems. Still, "The Family Stone" is a far better holiday alternative than the usual Yuletide themed films ("Christmas with the Kranks," various Tim Allen efforts). Sybil sits wistfully in front of her Christmas tree for a few quiet moments before her extensive family begins their boisterous holiday reunion. Heavily pregnant Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser, "Stay") and her daughter Elizabeth (Savannah Stehlin) have already nested there when brother Thad (Tyrone Giordano, "A Lot Like Love"), who is deaf, arrives with his black lover Patrick (Brian White, "Mr 3000"). Liberal, progressive mom Sybil warns arriving Ben (Luke Wilson, "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy") that Christmas isn't going to be clothing optional this year given their company, as Amy thrills to relay to one and all how awful their new guest is. After Everett's rental pulls up, Meredith, awkward in suit and heels, is escorted from the car by dad Kelly (Craig T. Nelson, "The Devil's Advocate," "The Skulls") painfully aware of the clan grouped watching from the window. Meredith is obviously a high strung bundle of insecurity. While laid back Ben tries to make her feel at home, Meredith does herself no favors by insisting she and Everett have separate rooms, displacing Amy, then nervously boring everyone with the dry, rambling tale of how she and Everett met. Then Amy sets her up to look like a racist during a game of charades and Meredith flies off the handle, insisting she move to the local inn where she'll have her sister, Julie (Claire Danes, "Shopgirl"), come to join her. On Christmas Eve, Julie, whose assimilation into the Stone family is so smooth it's barely noticeable, watches in horror as her sister digs herself a hole with an ill considered remark about parents of gay children. Everett doesn't follow Meredith when she flees the dinner table in tears, but another Stone brother does. In some ways, "The Family Stone" can be seen as the wintertime counterpart to the summery "Junebug." Both films feature families tied to a specific small town American region who are meeting a son's sophisticated urban partner for the first time. But where "Junebug's" George was a blank for a reason, someone the other characters projected onto and reflected away from, "Stone's" Everett, is just a blank. Dermot Mulroney's second appearance this year as a new fiance has even less personality than his first and that sucking sound you hear is the hole he leaves in this film's heart. An even bigger problem is the character of Julie, and Danes cannot fix what Bezucha has left broken. The writer/director has failed to work out a believable reason for her appearance and the romantic entanglement she becomes wrapped up in is equally mishandled and has little chemistry. Bezucha also exiles Thad and Patrick from the family manse presumably just to populate the town inn with more than just the Morton sisters. Which is a shame, because most other aspects of "The Family Stone" work. Diane Keaton is terrific as the family matriarch, an L.L. Bean liberal whose heart only hardens when her cubs are threatened. Keaton really does seem to have the ability to keep a large household in check while maintaining a sense of humor. She also has a wonderfully needy lovemaking scene with Nelson. Equally good is Sarah Jessica Parker, who couldn't have chosen a more different New Yorker from Carrie Bradshaw for her first post-"Sex and the City" role. Parker makes Meredith one of those socially inept people one feels embarrassed for - the woman's a mess and it is a relief to see her eventually let her hair down (too bad Bezucha makes it literal, but that she must not once, but twice crawl back into her shell before she's comfortable out of it is one of his better pieces of character development). Rachel McAdams's rising star continues its ascent with her totally different mean girl turn. She's the family gossip, an irrepressible trouble churner, but she's able to take the lesson she's taught and thaws out nicely. Elizabeth Reaser is McAdams' supporting equivalent - having made an impression in her "Stay" debut, she's a confident and warm presence here. While the men don't shine as brightly, Nelson is well cast and Paul Schneider ("All the Real Girls") proves a nice addition as the local guy who still has a thing for Amy. Wilson's likable enough crossing his usual low key charm with a little of brother Owen's stoner schtick. Bezucha writes Meredith a way to begin to redeem herself that is touching without being sentimental and his final coda circles back to his beginning with just the proper mix of holiday warmth and melancholia. With a few more polishes, "The Family Stone" may have almost sparkled, but it's been left with too many flaws to quite make the grade.

Robin's Review: DNS

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‘Housekeeping for Beginners’ Asks: So What Is a Family, Anyway?

By David Fear

“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” (The quote is from Friedrich Nietzsche, but don’t hold that against it.) When it comes to the group of folks living under the same North Macedonian roof in Goran Stolevski’s Housekeeping for Beginners, those same sentiments apply, though we’d amend that it’s a shared animosity toward the world supplies the lubrication and the bonding, while the music that’s bringing them harmony consists of Euro-techno you’d hear at 4 a.m. on the dance floor. When we first get dropped into this collective’s living room, a gaggle of young folks is jumping around enthusiastically to one such banger while a six-year-old is rocking out behind a toy keyboard. It’s a party, already in progress. Then the grown-ups enter, the screaming starts, and it’s apparent their mutual love language amounts to different ways of saying “Fuck off.”

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Compounding all of this household hurly-burly is the fact that Suada has stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Because she has no reason to trust the medical system — who, as we witness early on, are just as biased against the Romani as any other institution — she’s not exactly embracing the idea of treatments that only put off the inevitable. What Suada does want is for Dita to raise her children and look after them when she dies. If her girlfriend can give them her surname as well, to help them pass a little easier in “polite” Macedonian society, all the better. Threatening to slice open a vein while the couple is at the hospital, Suada forces her partner to agree to everything. Then we suddenly cut to a funeral. She’s gone. And “Mama Dita” and a reluctantly enlisted Toni have to figure out how to keep custody of the kids and help them endure their grief.

'Sasquatch Sunset': What's Hairy, Horny, and Puts Its Best Bigfoot Forward?

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And yet, thanks to Mama Dita’s steadfast refusal to let this patchwork quilt of a clan be torn apart by social services, hormones, and an abundance of in-house rage, these outcasts all manage to circle their wagons when they need to. As with her deservedly praised turn in 4 Months, Anamaria Marinca embodies the concept of grace under pressure onscreen here, the hub in which all of these bent and/or near-broken spokes converge. Even when Vanesa acts out by calls the cops on her guardian — “Hello, I’ve been abducted by a cult of gays!” she screams at a 911 operator — you see how quickly and efficiently Dita springs into action, in order to present a united “nuclear family” front. Forced to track the teenager down when she goes missing, Mom 2.0 rallies the troops and leaves no potential thread untugged. She truly is mother, in every sense of the phrase.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘When Calls The Heart’ Season 11 on The Hallmark Channel Is Sticking To Its Formula As A Cozy, Family Values-Filled Soap Opera

Where to stream:.

When Calls The Heart
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Is kayla wallace leaving ‘when calls the heart’ what we know about fiona in season 11, where to watch ‘when calls the heart’ season 11: start time, streaming info.

When Calls The Heart is a flagship series for the Hallmark Channel and has been for over ten years. With the premiere of the show’s 11th season, does the show’s quality and the characters’ storylines still hold up?

WHEN CALLS THE HEART (SEASON 11): STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: It’s election night. Lucas Bouchard (Chris McNally) walks out of his campaign headquarters after having just been elected Governor. If this scene feels familiar, it’s because it’s how season ten ended, but now we actually see what happened to Lucas – as he steps off a curb, he calls out to someone, asking “What are you doing here?” and gunshots ring out. The next thing we see is Sheriff Bill (Jack Wagner) racing toward Elizabeth (Erin Krakow) and “Mountie” Nathan (Kevin McGarry) to tell them, “It’s Lucas! He’s been shot.”

The Gist: Elizabeth rushed to Lucas’s bedside at the hospital where there was serious concern that he may not survive the two gunshot wounds he sustained, but after the opening credits roll, it’s now four months later and he has managed a miraculous recovery.

Nathan has been on the road investigating who shot Lucas, who has no memory of that night, and soon everyone reads in the paper that the perpetrator, Clayton Pike, was finally arrested. But Bill drags it out of Nathan that he doesn’t think they’ve caught their man. Even though Pike is in jail, Bill thinks that the shady businessman Bernhardt Montague is actually behind the attempted murder, and Nathan agrees. This gives reporter Rosemary (Pascale Hutton) ample opportunity to meddle her way into the story, trying to find new information to break so she can nose her way into any new scoops to publish in the local paper.

With Lucas living in Capital City now and embracing life as Governor, Elizabeth can’t help but move on herself. Though she seems like she’s still wondering where things could go with Nathan, she keeps dropping hints to Rosemary that she’s ready to move on to the next phase of her life. While Elizabeth seems unsure what that means for her romantic life, she definitely knows one way to shake things up: with a dramatic new haircut.

The citizens of Hope Valley gather around their radios to hear Lucas make a special address; he is announcing a new initiative to develop a hotel and resort in Hope Valley. (He received a parcel of land from Leland Coulter to do so.) Lucas announces that his office will be accepting proposals from private investors who might want to pitch their ideas for the resort. With the whole town abuzz over what this could mean for them, the season is set up for plenty of excitement and drama over who will develop the land and what’s going to happen in Hope Valley. As the moon rises over the town, everyone sits outside to watch the planets aligning next to the moon for a beautifully illuminated night sky.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? When Calls The Heart is like an early 20th century period drama version Sweet Magnolias , Virgin River , or Heart of Dixie , featuring strong female leads rounded out by a charming ensemble of townsfolk and tons of soapy, and occasionally life-altering, moments.

Our Take: When Calls The Heart is one of those soap operas where, despite the characters facing incredibly adversity and even tragedy, it remains non-threatening and easy to digest at every turn. As is the, uh, hallmark, of most Hallmark shows and movies, even though we’re presented with characters who are flawed or have hurdles to jump, they remain committed to being pleasant but determined, strong in the face of adversity and vulnerability. It’s aspirational more than realistic: of course this is not the way real people behave, at least not all the time, but it makes you wish there were real towns like Hope Valley where you could find such decent people. There’s nothing a beautiful moon in the sky can’t fix, that sort of thing.

This season, things have been shaken up, with Lucas having moved to become Governor, and Elizabeth trying to find herself, although, thus far, it doesn’t feel like all that much has changed for her, since she doesn’t seem to know how quickly things with Nathan should be moving. But new chapters in some other characters lives are definitely being written right away: Faith (Andrea Brooks) is devastated when Fiona decides not to move back to Hope Valley, but just as she’s wallowing in the emptiness left by the loss of her friend, an elderly patient asks her to care for her granddaughter, Lily. Instant mom! And with Nathan and Bill still sniffing out who could have shot Lucas, there’s a mystery element to grab onto this season, too. When Calls The Heart is the opposite of prestige TV, with its relatively low stakes and characters that are more broad archetypes than real people, but you can’t deny that it’s addictive, especially eleven seasons in, to see where else the show can go and where it may end up.

Parting Shot: As Rosemary, Leland, Elizabeth and Nathan sit outside at dusk, they watch the rare occurrence as Venus and Jupiter align in the sky next to a sparkly crescent moon. “It’s so beautiful,” Elizabeth remarks, looking up. “Yeah, it is,” Nathan replies looking right at her. Ooooooh.

Memorable Dialogue: “Lately, I’ve just been feeling. there’s a change in the air… and inside me,” Elizabeth tells Rosemary. She’s decided to give herself a makeover, starting with a new haircut but… she’s considering a life makeover, too.

Our Call: STREAM IT! I can’t help but compare When Calls The Heart to Grey’s Anatomy , which just kicked off its 20th season. With regard to both shows, they’re not quite the same as when they first premiered, but both have been successful at firmly establishing their main character and the world that revolves around her. As WCTH ‘s devoted fans watch Elizabeth Thornton move into the next phase of her life, the investment we’ve already made in her continues to pay off.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction .

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Exploring the Zellner Brothers’ “Sasquatch Sunset”: A Family of Bigfoot Worth Watching?

I f you’ve ever pondered whether Sasquatches have the ability to snore, the movie “Sasquatch Sunset” might resonate with you. These mythical creatures are not only depicted as noisy eaters and enthusiastic bug-pickers but also as beings capable of mourning, affection, burying their deceased, enjoying simple pleasures like stone-skipping, as well as contemplating existential solitude.

The filmmaking duo David and Nathan Zellner present “Sasquatch Sunset”, a 90-minute journey that defies convention. This film, devoid of narration and dialogue, straddles the line between audacious art and a potentially frustrating cinematic experience. It raises the question: should the audience be under the influence to fully appreciate it?

Starring Nathan Zellner, Jesse Eisenberg, Riley Keough, and Christophe Zajac-Denek, the film portrays a Sasquatch family, buried in hair suits and prosthetics, communicating in a language of grunts and gestures. Their animalistic behaviors, including frequent urination, add to the film’s bizarre tapestry.

The casting of high-profile actors might seem unnecessary, as their roles could be classified as “Method Chimpanzee” due to the primal nature of the performances. Yet, these actors are tasked with embodying a different kind of creature, with all its complexities and unrefined habits.

The film commences by shifting the narrative perspective to the Sasquatches themselves, inviting empathy for these traditionally misunderstood creatures. From moments of tenderness to communal grieving, “Sasquatch Sunset” balances moments of intimacy against a backdrop of wilderness.

However, some elements of the film risk alienating its audience. The cruder aspects of Sasquatch behavior—sneezing, mating, and even defecation—are presented alongside more tender moments, leaving viewers to puzzle over the film’s intent. Is it satire, sympathy, or something else entirely?

The narrative juxtaposes humanity with primal instincts, inviting audiences to reflect on innocence, evolution, and voicelessness. Yet, among tranquil forest sceneries and bizarre encounters with human civilization, the film’s potential environmental message becomes obscured.

Supported by an evocative soundtrack from The Octopus Project, the film closes with a unique credit that stands out: Sasquatch Wrangler. While it is unusual to encounter a Sasquatch movie, this one might just be an esoteric visual journey best left to lope past the mainstream audience.

Releasing in select theaters on April 12 with a wider release set for April 19, “Sasquatch Sunset” is rated R for its mature content. The film runs for 89 minutes and receives a modest one-star rating out of four.

MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Online: https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/sasquatch-sunset

Mark Kennedy can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

FAQ Section

“Sasquatch Sunset” is certainly an unconventional film, one that defies traditional storytelling by placing Bigfoots at the center of the narrative. The Zellner brothers create a cinematic piece that explores the essence of these mythical creatures beyond their folklore representations, but it may not resonate with a broader audience due to its esoteric nature. For those seeking something out of the ordinary in film and are open to raw, unfiltered glimpses into a creature’s life, the film might appeal. However, for those expecting a conventional cinematic experience, this Sasquatch story might better be left undiscovered.

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COMMENTS

The Family Stone movie review (2005)
Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson create touching characters in the middle of comic chaos. They have a scene together as true and intimate in its way as a scene involving a long-married couple can be. It doesn't involve a lot of dialogue, and doesn't need to, because it obviously draws on a lot of history. There is an emerging genre of movies ...
The Family Stone
Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) wants to bring his girlfriend, Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker), to meet his bohemian Connecticut family at Christmas. Straitlaced Meredith, feeling she needs ...
The Family Stone (2005)
The Family Stone: Directed by Thomas Bezucha. With Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney. An uptight, liberal businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.
The Family Stone
TOP CRITIC. The Family Stone works hard to warm the cockles of our hearts. The cast is attractive. The sentiments are commendable. But the love Bezucha wants us to feel for the family couldn't ...
The Family Stone Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 2 ): Kids say ( 6 ): Thomas Bezucha's film means well and offers fine performances, but is in the end tripped up by holiday-family-gathering movie clichés. The point of The Family Stone isn't really measuring up, though this is, of course, the presumption of Christmas-family-gathering movies.
The Family Stone
The Family Stone is a 2005 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Thomas Bezucha.Produced by Michael London and distributed by 20th Century Fox, it stars an ensemble cast, including Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson, Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams, and Tyrone Giordano.. The plot follows the Christmas holiday misadventures of the Stone ...
The Family Stone
Summary The Family Stone is a story about an annual gathering of an unconventional New England family. Before the holidays are done, relationships will unravel while new ones are formed, secrets will be revealed and the Stone family will come together through its extraordinary capacity for love. (20th Century Fox) Comedy.
Time to Drop the Cellphone and Pick Up a Casserole
The Stone patriarch, Kelly (Craig T. Nelson), is a professor, and the family's vaguely bookish, boho vibe is reinforced by the Susan Sontag-style splash of white that punctuates the otherwise dark ...
Classic Review: The Family Stone (2005)
The Family Stone is a true ensemble film. Its cast, by far, is the biggest draw and its biggest strength. Everyone here works wonders together, let by one of the most inspired performances by Keaton in the last couple decades. This was probably the first (or one of the first) times she took the role of the matriarch, an archetype she ended up ...
BBC
The Family Stone (2005) It's the season of good will, but there's not much of it going round in yuletide comedy The Family Stone. Diane Keaton plays the head of the clan and leads the assault on ...
EW debates 'The Family Stone': The best Christmas movie, or the worst?
DARREN: On paper, it's the perfect family, and the perfect set-up for a great Christmas movie. Unfortunately, The Family Stone is not a Christmas movie. It's a horror movie in which the perfect ...
The Family Stone
Movie Review. Meredith Morton gives a whole new meaning to the word uptight. That means there's only one thing for a Hollywood screenwriter to do: introduce her to a family that puts the loose in loosey-goosey. Everett Stone brings Meredith home to meet his family at Christmastime, intending to propose to her.
A Long Talk With Sarah Jessica Parker About The Family Stone
Sarah Jessica Parker stars as the career-driven Meredith Morton, who spends Christmas with her boyfriend Everett's (Dermot Mulroney) New England family. Meredith's nervousness reads as iciness ...
The Family Stone (2005)
Bezucha stumbles by milking the final scene for way too long, but The Family Stone still gets the balance right for a superior multiplex holiday offering -- unpredictable enough to be funny, familiar enough to be comfortable, touching enough to be sentimental. Read movie and film review for The Family Stone (2005) - Thomas Bezucha, Bezucha ...
You've Been Getting 'The Family Stone' All Wrong
Released in 2005, The Family Stone follows the eponymous Stone family, headed by Sybil ( Diane Keaton) and Kelly ( Craig T. Nelson ), as each of their five grown children and their respective ...
The Family Stone Review
The Family Stone Review. Christmas at the Stone family home is a time for laughter, joy and liberal values until eldest son Everett (Mulroney) brings Meredith (Parker), his tightly wound ...
Everything I need to know, I learned from 'The Family Stone'
Sibling dynamics are definitely one of the reasons this movie stays high on my list of favorites. 4. Appreciate the time you have together. Without being too spoiler-y, I will say something vague ...
The Family Stone
A woman meets her future in-laws and discovers they don't much care for her in this comedy from writer and director Thomas Bezucha. Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) is a successful young businessman who is dating Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker), and has asked her to spend Christmas with his family, with plans to ask his mother, Sybil (Diane Keaton), for the titular family wedding band ...
'The Family Stone' Movie Review (2005)
'The Family Stone' Movie Review (2005) December 16, 2005. By Laremy Legel . I really wanted to hate The Family Stone based on the trailers alone. It's your typical schlock preview with the ...
The Family Stone Movie Review for Parents
The Family Stone Rating & Content Info . Why is The Family Stone rated PG-13? The Family Stone is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for some sexual content including dialogue, and drug references.. This dialogue-heavy film, which is a near-continuous series of arguments, deals with topics that will be difficult for pre-teens to follow.
The Family Stone (2005) Movie Review
Everett is bringing his future fiancé, Meredith, home to meet the family in hopes of giving her his grandmother's ring when he proposes. Upon arrival, Mered...
Family Stone, The
MPAA Rating: "PG-13" (Sexual Situations, Profanity) Genre: DRAMA/COMEDY. Subtitles: none. Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1. It's a tough thing for a dysfunctional-family-at-Christmas movie to avoid doses of melodrama, and it's fair to say that The Family Stone contains its share. But the nice thing about the movie is that it avoids overt ...
'1923' actor Cole Brings Plenty found dead, police and family confirm
Cole Brings Plenty, the "1923" actor who went missing last weekend, was found dead Friday in a wooded area in Kansas, police and his family said. The actor, 27, was last seen in the early ...
The Family Stone
Laura's Review: C+. Writer/director Thomas Bezucha's ("Big Eden") leap into bigger budget filmmaking is blessed with some terrific performances that help, but cannot hide, some severe problems. Still, "The Family Stone" is a far better holiday alternative than the usual Yuletide themed films ("Christmas with the Kranks," various Tim Allen ...
'Housekeeping for Beginners' Asks: So What Is a Family, Anyway?
"In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony." (The quote is from Friedrich Nietzsche, but don't hold that ...
'When Calls The Heart' Season 11 Hallmark Channel Review ...
Memorable Dialogue: "Lately, I've just been feeling. there's a change in the air… and inside me," Elizabeth tells Rosemary.She's decided to give herself a makeover, starting with a new ...
Exploring the Zellner Brothers' "Sasquatch Sunset": A Family of Bigfoot
The filmmaking duo David and Nathan Zellner present "Sasquatch Sunset", a 90-minute journey that defies convention. This film, devoid of narration and dialogue, straddles the line between ...

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