Film

You Might See Your Family in the Altmans

This Is Where I Leave You puts the best and worst together in one week of reflection

Oh, that Judd Altman is a nice guy. Look at him handing out coffee to appreciative co-workers on the way to his desk. See the way he smiles as his boss manipulates his radio talk show on the air, pitching fits and raising the volume, the way good talk show hosts do while producers like Judd watch through the window and then stay the extra few hours to worry about the demographics and strategies and other important stuff while the talent lets him know he’s too busy to discuss that right now and rushes off to … Be the guy acrobatically hovering over Judd’s own wife in his own bed when the poor schmuck arrives home an hour earlier than expected with a surprise birthday cake in hand, candles already lit. Half in shock, wife Quinn admits the affair with his boss has been going on for a year while boss bozo attempts to lie that it’s the first time … in that position. Next thing you know, Judd’s mom calls from the hospital room to tell him that his ill father has just died. And I mean just, as she yanks the catheter her husband hated so much right out of his chest while her son winces on the other end of the phone. Jason Bateman owns This Is Where I Leave You as the most shell-shocked of the Altman clan as he finds himself back in his hometown, in the house he grew up, following the orders of his mom that he and his fellow adult siblings and their significant others — sans Quinn, whom he’s divorcing but instead prefers to tell all but his sister is back home with a bulging disc — sit shiva, seven days of hell for a family that wasn’t even Jewish, for all they remember. Directed by Shawn Levy from a screenplay written by Jonathan Tropper from the pages of his own novel, this is a family story that at times should make you both love and hate your own tribe even more for its own idiosyncrasies. Because the Altmans display all of that and more in this week of discovery, rediscovery, self discovery and sheer doofus behavior. Just like real life but only better, in other words.
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