This Is Where I Leave You follows the Altman family, who come together to sit shiva for a week after the death of their father. As the four siblings return home, each of them undergoing turmoil in their marriages and relationships, they rekindle former flings, reminisce with old friends, and ponder their life trajectories.
“You used to laugh at my jokes,” said Penny Moore (Rose Byrn, of Bridesmaids) to her highschool lover, Judd Altman (Jason Bateman, of Arrested Development fame). Though referencing their past relationship, Byrn might as well have been speaking on behalf of the entire cast of This Is Where I Leave You. Starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, and Adam Driver, director Shawn Levy’s latest flick fails to take advantage of its cast of comedy veterans.
The movie never figures out what genre it aspires to fit. Though the sophomoric, slapstick humor characteristic of Levy’s previous comedies is certainly present here, the jokes often fall flat. The film’s attempts to build dramatic tension, for example, are undermined by juvenile potty-training laughs and by creepy jokes about the Altman mother’s breast implants.
This Is Where I Leave You jumps between comedy and drama so jarringly that the dramatic scenes lack the gravitas needed to work effectively. As the jokes grow even more obvious and tired, the movie loses whatever weak command of the audience’s attention it had.
The Altmans never seem like a real family. They fit perfectly into the archetype of a dysfunctional family, and their problems seem trite and disingenuous: Phillip is the screw-up little brother who can’t seem to grow up; Judd catches his wife sleeping with his boss; and Paul and his wife, who is also Judd’s ex-girlfriend, can’t conceive a child despite numerous attempts. These situations have been used so many times in film and TV that nothing about the Altmans has any emotional pull.
Instead of flexing their acting muscles, Fey, Bateman, and Driver make basic jabs about religion and work, and far too much time is wasted discussing each other’s sex lives in vivid detail. The obvious toilet humor and gag comedy mean the cast’s talent, which has the potential to make up for the film’s dramatic insufficiencies, is entirely wasted.
Bateman’s Judd Altman is the protagonist of the film and the character that undergoes the most apparent growth. His initial resentment toward his wife subsides when he realizes that he must forgive her in order to have a presence in his daughter’s life. After a week under the same roof as his mother and siblings, he has realized the importance of family.
That is the ultimate theme of This Is Where I Leave You: family is essential and whether you want to admit it or not, you’ll always need your family. This theme is didactically presented throughout the film, but, just in case you missed it, Hillary says it explicitly at the end. It is a common message, no doubt, but one that can still work if conveyed in a nuanced way. Instead, This Is Where I Leave You insults its audience’s intelligence with boring and hackneyed gags and half-hearted attempts at drama. The film never decides on a tone and hopes that viewers will merely overlook its incompetence. The Altman’s week-long Shiva could not end soon enough.
