THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU – The Review

76-year old Jane Fonda’s enhanced bosom is milked for big laughs in the new comedy THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU. Hillary Altman, the matriarch of a dysfunctional middle-class New Jersey family gathered to bury her husband, is the best role Hanoi Jane has had in decades (not saying much) and she has a great time with it, wistfully recalling the circumference of her late husband’s schlong and refusing to cover up her store-bought rack despite her kid’s constant embarrassment. The rest of THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU is a mixed bag and doesn’t measure up to what Fonda is doing but it has enough good moments to recommend.

Jason Bateman stars in THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU as cuckolded radio producer Judd Altman. Not only does his wife (Abigail Spencer) cheat on him in the opening scenes, but does so with his boss (Dax Shepard), therefore he gets to lose both his job and his marriage before the opening credits have rolled. To make matters worse, he is then thrown together for a week with his three siblings (Tina Fey, Adam Driver, and Corey Stoll) upon the death of their father, an atheist Jew for whom the inappropriate gentile Hillary (Fonda) insists the family sit shiva (a Jewish custom of seven days of mourning) – and they do it right on the spot where they used to set up the family Christmas tree! It seems Mom had written a best-seller years earlier in which she exposed the sexual hang-ups of her kids so this week of togetherness gives them all the chance to relive the embarrassment and play out familiar family dynamics. The relationship between Judd and brother Paul (Stoll) is dominated by old resentment and awkwardness with the fact that Paul’s wife (Kathryn Hahn) is one of Judd’s former girlfriends. Judd’s married sister (an underused Fey) takes the opportunity of being home to reconnect with a brain-damaged former love (Timothy Olyphant) while steering clear of most of the family mayhem. Phillip (Driver), the baby of the family and chronic screw-up, delivers outrageous fabrications about his current occupation to anyone who asks and brings home a new girlfriend (Connie Britton) who’s much older and wiser. Mom’s infamous directness just adds more tension and humor to the situation.

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU plays like a coming-of-age story for a middle-aged man and packs in a lot of characters and situations into its 105 minutes. Screenwriter Jonathan Tropper tries to squeeze in too much from his novel, shortchanging some of the characters (especially Ms Fey who barely makes an impression). Tonally the film is all over the map, not always successful in straddling the line between comedy and drama. Jokes about Fonda’s boobs and Wendy’s toddler’s toilet training are interspersed with heavy dialog and speeches about infidelity, miscarriage, and the heartbreaking pitfalls of parenting. Every dramatic base is covered – I kept waiting for someone to come out of the closet as gay to the astonished family, and sure enough it happens right near the end. The acting is excellent across the board with the exception of Ben Schwartz, whose ridiculously broad shtick as ‘Boner’ the spastic rabbi seems piped in from a Mel Brooks comedy.

I wished I liked THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU more than I did. It made me laugh but failed on an emotional level – I never got that universal feeling we all share about the ritual of going home for something like the funeral of a loved one: the dread, the constant reminders of why you left, and the comfort gained from the knowledge that there exists a “home” to which you can return. But for a late-summer time-killer THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU is good enough and Jane Fonda’s geriatric jugs are indeed quite impressive.

3 of 5 Stars

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU opens in St. Louis September 19th at (among other places) The Hi-Pointe Theater