The Harper Lee quote ‘You can choose your friends, but not your family’ never appears more apt than during the Christmas season. Movies about family dysfunction often follow a familiar pattern, with grievances aired, secrets revealed, lessons learned and (eventually) fences mended:
The Family Stone (2005) Disney+, Amazon Rent/Buy
The Family Stone has snuck up on us as a contemporary semi-Christmas classic, aided by a fine cast and acerbic one-liners.
It’s culture clash time again, as conservative New York career woman Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) spends Christmas in rural Connecticut with the bohemian family of boyfriend Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney).
Nothing we haven’t seen before, but Thomas Bezucha (Let Him Go) keeps the show on the road, with the picture earning $93m on a $18 budget, a nice Christmas present for producers Fox 2000 Pictures.
Lemon (2017) Amazon Prime, Rent/Buy
Steel yourself for an exercise in ‘cringe comedy’ in Janicza Bravo’s Lemon.
Fleabag’s Brett Gelman (who co-wrote with then wife Bravo) plays actor Isaac Lachmann, whose lack of empathy, arrogance and selfishness assume epic proportions after his blind girlfriend Ramona (Judy Greer) understandably leaves him.
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