James Proclaims!

I didn’t hate 2005’s The Family Stone but I’m not sure I really liked it all that much either. It mostly seems to be about a people who are quite hard to like, not being liked by other people who are also hard to like. They mostly do seem to end up liking each other in the end, but, despite the more than decent cast, I still found it hard to like any of them.

It’s not entirely without merit, there are some genuinely funny moments and some parts which might well have been quite moving if I had been able to get past my general ambivalence to the titular family.

Ultimately though, it’s a comedy-drama that doesn’t seem to work especially well as a comedy or as a drama.

Score for Christmasishness

This might be one that deserves to be regarded as an actual Christmas film, rather than just Chistmas(ish). It is entirely centred around a family getting together for Christmas and there isn’t any part of the film that isn’t set over Christmas. However, if there is a discernible difference between a Christmas movie and a movie which just happens to be set at Christmas, then The Family Stone does, to my mind, fall into the latter category. It’s probably splitting hairs, but I have to justify this pointless annual endeavour somehow.