Family

Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Director: Laura Steinel

Quick Impressions:
I love movies about odd and dysfunctional families, and ever since seeing Taylor Schilling in The Public last month, I love her, too. She makes being slightly unhinged look so charming. I really like the amount of energy she’s able to convey to the audience simply by appearing on screen. I don’t watch much adult TV, so I’ve never actually seen Orange Is the New Black, but I’m beginning to think maybe I should check it out in reruns. I love Kate McKinnon, too. I’ll watch her in anything. She’s consistently hilarious whether the project around her works or not.

The plot of this movie also had me hooked. A driven career woman suddenly derails her life when her niece becomes a Juggalo. (That’s not exactly how it plays out, but a summary I read on promotional material at the theater put it about like that.) For some reason, I knew that a Juggalo is a hard core fan of Insane Clown Posse. (It seems strange that I would know that, given that I’m not cool in any way. Possibly it was a question on Jeopardy once? I’ve definitely never attended any Juggalo functions. And I didn’t know that as a group they call themselves the Family. I thought that was reserved for the Mafia. Maybe they just call themselves Family without the article.)

At any rate, this film is kind like Little Miss Sunshine, if you replace Alan Arkin and dancing with Brian Tyree Henry and karate…and Juggalos. And instead of ice cream for breakfast, the girl wants to eat chicken parm for every meal. And Taylor Schilling is kind of like everybody else in the dysfunctional family all by herself.

My husband noted afterwards that it’s nice to see a growing trend of movies about women written and directed by a woman (as this one is). I have to say I was incredibly skeptical that Hollywood would actually make any changes to allow women greater opportunities in filmmaking. (Talk is cheap, you know, and making movies is expensive.) But over the past year, I have noticed what appears to be evidence of women playing a more prominent role in the film industry. (We’ll see what happens next year.) (And then we’ll check back again in five years when all the talk has died down.)

Taylor Schilling basically carries this movie all by herself. She’s in practically every scene, and contrary to what the promotional material may say, it’s really a movie about a Juggalo niece saving her unhappy aunt. Yes, the niece (Bryn Vale) is awkward and could use someone in her corner, but the movie is really about the aunt, once a little girl who grew up in a dysfunctional household and still doesn’t know how to function. As the story opens, Kate Stone is an unhappy woman cut off from everyone. She’s intelligent, attractive, and driven, highly successful at work but unable to function socially. She’s been deeply unhappy for so long that she doesn’t even realize the depth of her misery until something changes.

Schilling makes this (often unpleasant) character fascinating and sympathetic from start to finish. The supporting cast does excellent work, too, but this is not really an ensemble effort. This is Schilling’s film, and it’s extremely funny.

The Good:
At moments, Family seems like the comedy version of Blue Jasmine (which itself is often darkly funny). Kate Stone does have a lot of issues, and one of her many social weaknesses is her complete inability to be around children. Not only does she not have children, but she also cannot initially understand why anyone would want children. She views them as a weakness, a liability, a bad decision, a burden. Granted, these sentiments are not entirely unreasonable in a driven professional seeking career advancement. But Kate doesn’t just feel this way about children. She also can’t help expressing these views out loud in the office. She’s also averse to any other personal attachment. At the start, she’s completely cut off from her own family.

Kate is self aware enough to offer a pretty spot on assessment of her behavior. At one point, she confides in someone that she says the things out loud that everyone else is thinking, and then people dislike her for it. This gives us quite a bit of insight into what she imagines everyone is thinking. And she makes a fair point. She’s certainly not the only one thinking that having a baby is career suicide. Sometimes, even today, it is (despite laws in place that theoretically prevent this from happening). My sister and I often joke about the incessant barrage of advice (and judgment) women receive from our extremely hyper-critical (and obviously confused) society. You’re a working mother? You must be neglecting your child! You stay home with your child? You’ve thrown away a chance for a career! You think you’ve found a work-life balance? You’re kidding yourself! If you’re a woman, whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong. (And I’m sure men feel the same way.)

So Kate is wrong when she says a pregnant colleague’s career is over (but is she?). (Obviously, from an ethical standpoint, she is wrong, but from a practical point of view, working mothers have a much tougher time when it comes to career advancement. These things are changing, but not fast enough, and never as completely as all our big talk as a society would lead you to believe.)

Kate, though, is so tormented, and as it becomes clear that the voice she’s using to critique others is the same voice she hears inside her head all the time, we begin to feel for her. She’s an arresting, well-written character, and Schilling brings her to life beautifully.

At times, the character reminded me so much of my sister. Now my sister is not a high-powered executive who goes on vicious tirades reducing those around her to tears, but she is at a loss when it comes to what to expect from children. It’s not what she says that reminds me of Kate, it’s the looks on her face that are so similar. I’ve seen that look of rising alarm, cautious bafflement, and mounting dread so many times before, that look of, Okay, I’m just not going to say anything, but are they supposed to do this?

It isn’t that Kate dislikes children. It’s that they terrify her. Schilling conveys so much non-verbally.

The supporting cast in this movie is fabulous, too. I’ve always loved Kate McKinnon, and this past Oscar season, Brian Tyree Henry suddenly turned up in so many juicy supporting roles that I feel like he’s a member of my own family. I really love him as Sensei Pete, one of my favorite characters in the movie. He seems like such a genuinely good person, and you know he must have quite the backstory himself. Sometimes, I watch a movie and think, “I hope these characters don’t end up together romantically because that would be so unnecessary!” But this time I watched and thought, “I hope Kate and Sensei Pete get together!” That’s probably not fair to him since Kate really has quite a lot of issues she needs to work through, but he would be so good for her. (I should add that on paper, this character could seem a bit creepy, considering how thoroughly he’s become a part of this child’s life without her parents even knowing he exists. But obviously he’s a kind person with good intentions.)

Young Bryn Vale conveys the awkwardness and frustration of eleven-year-old Maddie very well, but even better, I like Baby Joker (Fabrizio Zacharee Guido). We were really happy to see Jessie Ennis appear as Erin. We thought she was pretty charming in the Melissa McCarthy comedy Life of the Party, and we also found it a positive sign that though she’s not the traditional femme fetale type, she’s cast as the younger woman Kate finds threatening in this film. Funnily enough, one of her co-stars from Life of the Party, Matt Walsh, also appears here. His name is Dan in both films. He’s in one of the funniest scenes of this movie. (Well, actually, nearly every scene of this movie made me laugh. They’re not huge belly laughs. They’re more “oh, this is awkward” grimaces.) Peter Horton also gets a nice moment that tells us quite a lot about Kate’s childhood.

Perhaps my favorite supporting character is Blair Beeken’s Barb, Kate’s long-suffering assistant. I’m not sure why I love her so much. I just find her ability to work with someone like Kate quite endearing, and I love the part about her brother. The moment when she explains that situation is so satisfying.

Best Action Sequence:

My favorite scene in the entire movie is the confrontation featuring Kate McKinnon and the bounce house. Honestly, I just love the way the scene ends. We get delicious payoff of a joke that’s been building through the whole movie. It reminds me of a similar moment in Mallrats, which I also adore. Honestly this scene might even be a little better because it gets bonus points for reminding me of my grandma whose nervous fretfulness often caused the catastrophes she was so desperately anxious to avoid. (I actually also love the way Kate’s final interaction with Jill ends. It makes me want to get to known Jill better.) Of course, these scenes are elevated further by the fact that I really like Kate McKinnon. She’s made me laugh so often in the past that I’ll always be favorably disposed toward her work.

Best Scene Visually:
The movie’s strongest visual flourish is the way that it uses the office coffee maker to mark time (and the protagonist’s rapidly deteriorating inner state).

I also love the partially visual joke at the end of Kate’s liquid business lunch. What she says about drinking is sad, touching, and funny all at once, but what she does as she says it genuinely amuses me.

Best Scene:

My favorite scene in the movie is near the end when one of Kate’s biggest problems essentially solves itself. Here we see how clearly someone’s inner turmoil can affect his or her view of the world. Kate has a lot of genuine problems created by the conflict that arises in this story, but when she is experiencing less psychiatric distress, she has a much clearer view of what is actually going on around her. This reduces some of her problems to a more manageable size.

The Negatives:
I find it surprising that Kate could behave as she does as a boss without some kind of reprimand from HR. Some of the comments she makes are so objectionable and create a truly hostile work environment. I know that hostile work environments do exist, but I find it somewhat surprising that when she reaches out to people later, they simply forgive her. Is it because she forgives them when they lash out at her in response to her rudeness? I don’t know. I feel like some willing suspension of disbelief is involved here. I would be terrified to speak to my supervisor or my subordinates in such an unprofessional manner.

I also find Maddie’s age a little disturbing. I initially assumed that “middle school” meant that she was about thirteen years old. Then we learn late in the movie that she is only eleven. That seems like a plausible age for the character given her awkwardness and stunted social skills. But it makes her choice of new friends much more worrying. I love the Baby Joker character. He seems like a genuinely kind, nice guy. But he talks about picking up his mother from work. So he’s old enough to drive alone, and this little girl is eleven? That’s a bit problematic. He doesn’t seem to have any sinister designs on her, but still.

Initially, I also found the basic set up of the movie implausible. Kate is really the only person who can possibly watch the niece she barely knows? Really? The mom doesn’t have any friends? I’m pretty sure Jill would watch her if for no other reason than the pleasure of telling people she’s risen to the task. (Of course, maybe that’s part of the reason the parents don’t want Jill watching Maddie. Actually, fairly late in the movie, I thought, “Well, maybe the mom is also socially awkward. Maybe that’s part of the problem. And maybe the dad is desperate to have his sister in his life. Maybe recent events have left him feeling really vulnerable, so he’s reaching out to his sister, hitting her with everything he can think of to get her to respond.” By the way, Allison Tolman and Eric Edelstein are good as Maddie’s parents, complex characters in their own right.) But why don’t they take Maddie with them? If I were Maddie, I would want to be there.

I also really want to know–why Insane Clown Posse? We get to see interviews with what appear to be real Juggalos at the end. What is the writer/director’s fascination with ICP? Is she a Juggalo herself? It’s such an interesting way to bring the story together, but I’d love to see a making of featurette to gain some insight into the writer/director’s choices.

Overall:

This is a sweet story about the rewards of embracing and building on the “fun” parts of a dysfunctional family. Though all of the humor has vaguely sad undertones, I did laugh a lot, and I found several of the characters charming and compelling, especially Taylor Schilling’s Kate Stone. Basically Family is Little Miss Sunshine meets Blue Jasmine, and they’ve met at a gathering of ICP Juggalos. It’s not Avengers: Endgame, yet it is playing in theaters right now. Not many movies can say that!

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