In my home, “probably the most wonderful time of the year” can’t start till Diane Keaton throws a cozy gown and scarf over her crisp, white button-down and calls for to know who finished the pot of coffee.
I am referring, in fact, to the 2005 gem that’s the Family Stone, written and directed by Thomas Bezucha, a home-for-the-holidays ensemble dramedy movie that’s streaming free on Peacock this year.
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The festive Sarah Jessica Parker car acquired mixed reviews when it premiered. The place audiences (ahem, me) noticed an elegant seesaw of comedic hijinks and tearjerking poignancy, critics saw tonal whiplash. Whereas audiences (also me) enjoyed the highs and lows of the movie’s quirky love triangle — nay, rhombus — critics stated, “Um, what?”
But over sixteen Christmas seasons, the comfy-coziest of vacation movies has attracted considerably of a cult following. A criminally small one, in my estimation, because it is the right Christmas movie. This is why.
First, the setting: The Family Stone virtually entirely takes place within the sprawling and charmingly cluttered New England residence of empty nesters Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson). It is Christmas, and their five adult youngsters are returning dwelling for the holidays. There will be take-out pizza. There’ll be a recreation of charades. There’ll be slipper socks. If this film has supplied me with something, it’s the hope to someday procure 5 grownup kids of my very own so they too might return dwelling for the vacations and re-create the utter warmth and cheer this movie radiates.
Oldest son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) is bringing residence his accomplice, Meredith (Parker), to meet the household for the primary time, and, as Sybil correctly intuits, to ask for his grandmother’s heirloom marriage ceremony ring so he can propose. The wonderfully messy, raucous, bohemian Stone family, which includes very-pregnant Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser), enjoyable-loving pothead Ben (Luke Wilson in a scarf), NPR tote bag-toting Amy (Rachel McAdams), and the sweet (and deaf) Thad (Tyrone Giordano) take an instant disliking to Meredith. You see, Meredith’s chignons are supertight. She wears excessive heels in the home. She participates in capitalism. She’s a “spoiled, loopy, racist, bigot bitch from Bedford” (her words). Hilarity and havoc ensue.
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That synopsis doesn’t really do the movie justice though, as a result of this is a movie whose charms transcend plot. The true Christmas miracle here is within the film’s aesthetic, and you’re mendacity to your self if you think aesthetics aren’t the most important factor of any vacation film. The Stone’s residence is hygge on steroids: So many window treatments and pillows! So many patterned wallpapers! Each bookshelf, drawer and cabinet is totally overflowing with the detritus of family life. It is probably the most lived-in film house I’ve ever seen. And naturally there’s a blanket of snow throughout the front yard at some stage in the movie.
Then there’s the dysfunctional household piece, a prerequisite of holiday fare. The Stone family might bear the designation at first glance, but when you actually dig in to the movie — in the event you watch it yearly for a decade and a half — you may find they’re really fairly practical. And I believe this will get to why The Household Stone is such an ideal annual rewatch.
Keaton’s aging matriarch is as sharp-tongued as she is affectionate. She first greets Ben with a warm hug and a warning that “Christmas is just not going to be ‘clothes optional’ this year.” She teases Amy in regards to the guy who “popped your cherry.” When Everett finally asks for the ring, she delivers an iconic Keatonian “Tough shit!” She and Kelly’s marriage can solely be described as aspirational. And the playful ribbing and head swatting and eye-rolling among the many siblings is something I want in on. It is the household dynamic equal of a bowl of buttery mashed potatoes.
The opposite secret ingredient is the best way the entire film pivots on a single line delivered by Wilson on a snowy soccer bleacher. You think it’ll be one film, but then it bait-and-switches into an excellent higher one. The line — you’ll comprehend it if you hear it — heightens the movie to a complete other level, bringing new layers to why the Stone household is really so important of Meredith.
I noticed The Family Stone for the first time in a packed movie theater in 2005. It was so packed, the truth is, that I had to sit down in the dreaded front row, and i left with a crick in my neck and a warmth in my heart. On every annual rewatch since, I find new particulars I hadn’t observed before. The film is my yuletide touchstone in an increasingly chaotic world. For 103 minutes each December, I get to spend time with a bustling, tight-knit, hug-blissful family whose love for each other is so sturdy it creates the circumstances for site (http://earlgleason.com/home/scan00061) a dozen comedic fish-out-of-water set items.
Every year I feel “Possibly the Stones will be good to Meredith this time.” Every year the Christmas Eve dinner scene becomes much more excruciating than the final. And every year I remember that packed theater, and i purse my lips in wistful resignation that they simply don’t make them like this anymore.