• Movie Preview •

Jane Fonda, Lindsay Lohan, Felicity Huffman, Dermot Mulroney, Cary Elwes, Garrett Hedlund. Drama. Written by Mark Andrus. Directed by Garry Marshall.

FILM SYNOPSIS: Rebellious teenager Rachel (Lohan) is taken by her mother to stay with her grandmother. It becomes apparent quickly that these are all members of a dysfunctional family. Granny is distant, mom’s an alcohol who hates her mother, and the little rebel is promiscuous and reveals that her stepfather began sexually abusing her when she was twelve.

Is this true or is the teenager making up the story to get back at her mother? You have to stick around to the end, putting up with incessant bad behavior before learning the truth. The film has all three women revealing family secrets before they bond and find redemption.

PREVIEW REVIEW: Incest is at the core of this production. It’s hinted at, not just with Rachel and her step-dad, but it is also ever-so slightly implied that the dead grandpa may have been a child abuser, as well. It’s kind of an R-rated Lifetime for Women movie – you know, where men are bad and woman are confused.

While the arts should be used to explore human relationships and expose wrongdoings, incest is a difficult subject to sit through on a date, while eating popcorn. And though the actresses do a nice job, and it is witty with occasional insight, how many films do we have to sit through where quirky and dysfunctional families are the source of comic and melodramatic strife? In the last two years, we’ve been subjected to family strife in countless theatrical releases, including Babel, Click, Deck the Halls, Firehouse Dog, Flicka, A Good Year, Keeping Mum, Little Miss Sunshine, Miss Potter, Nanny McPhee, Pearl Diver, The Quiet, Running with Scissors, RV, Santa Claus 3, The Shaggy Dog, Madea’s Family Reunion, Winter Passing, Are We Done Yet?, Because I Said So, Curse of the Golden Flower, Daddy’s Little Grils, Disturbia, The Ex, In the Land of Women, The Lookout, The Last Sin Eater, Norbit, TMNT, The Ultimate Gift and Vacancy. Enough with the family strife, already. “Hollywood, let’s get another genre to beat to death. How about comic book superheroes?” Oh, right.

Distributor: Universal