Release Date – 8/26/2011 (limited)
Jack and Bunnie Burnett don’t have the best relationship. They constantly argue, no longer are intimate with each other and their kids are weird. Their son Eric is a bible thumper while their daughter Kelly is a bit promiscuous. Put them all together and you get a good old fashioned dysfunctional family. After an accident causes a head injury, Bunnie has slight amnesia. She can’t remember anything after her wedding day, including her own kids. So she starts acting like a happy newlywed again which pleases everyone in her family. But the secrets she was keeping (and can’t remember) are coming back to haunt her and threaten to ruin the family. This is a dark comedy that may not have went dark enough or funny enough to have a lasting stay for fans of these types of movies. While it did have a few moments that made me laugh out loud, they were few and far between.
Dermot Mulroney is great as Jack Burnett. I’m not a Mulroney fan so it was great seeing him in a really different and funny role. He’s such a nerdy, awkward guy, but he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind. Hope Davis starts out playing Bunnie as a huge bitch. You just feel bad for all her family members who have to deal with her. Then after her head injury, she’s very nice and fun to be around causing her family to view her differently. Meanwhile Max Thieriot as Eric is in a group of hardcore Jesus freaks who chase down pot smokers and beat them up. He becomes unlikely friends with the mohawked punker Paul Stukey, played by John Patrick Amedori. And finally to round out the family is Brittany Robertson as Kelly. She brags of her sexual conquests while playing the part of the whore at school, but its just all a front to seem cooler than she is. She befriends the weirdo Mitzi (Madeline Zima) after catching her up to no good in the girls’ bathroom. All these stories try really hard to connect to make it like a Coen Brothers type ending, but it doesn’t work out so well. Small roles by Christina Hendricks as the big breasted secretary that catches Jack’s eye, Gabrielle Anwar as Jack’s hot flirty coworker, Jane Seymour as the grandma, Selma Blair as a high school teacher with a secret, Keith Carradine as the gun wielding priest, Bow Wow as a gang banger and Chi McBride as the neighbor who has a thing for Bunnie. Lots of characters and stories trying to come together for the big climax. Maybe too many to keep track of and care about.
As much as The Family Tree is about the family, their stories aren’t really connected. Bunnie and Jack have their own stuff going on while the kids are off putting together two separate scenarios, which are almost connecting… but not really. I get what first time director Vivi Friedman and first time film writer Mark Lisson were going for here. I can’t help but compare to the masters of dark comedy, the Coen Brothers. They wanted all these separate stories to come together in the end. They do, but its kind of forced. Plus for a comedy, there weren’t a whole lot of laughs. Most of them coming from Jack and one of the final scenes. Plus for having so much going on, it felt rushed. Clocking in at only 87 minutes. Having all those characters and all those stories going on in one movie should have called for a longer running time to help build them all up and connect in the end. All in all, it wasn’t a bad movie, but it just wasn’t anything special either. Its that Neutral ground between Made and Whacked that could easily be forgotten down the line.
IMDB – 5.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes – N/A
Movie Wiseguys – 6/10