What the... Terrible!

Rating: 3/10 (28 August 2006)

I don't know where to begin with this one. It starts off well enough, and goes on that way for fifty minutes or so. Never great, I'd say, but it's a perfectly acceptable little indie comedy. Alan Arkin and Steve Carell are both excellent, and Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear are fine, too. But then it takes a majorly wrong turn (think grandma from National Lampoon's Vacation, miscalculated at an astronomical level), follows that up with some incredibly forced bits and ends up at one of the most outrageously appalling climaxes I have seen in a long time. I went from moderately enjoying it to downright hating it. It's too bad, too, because I do like some of the things it's trying to say, some of the things it's trying to do. But what a disaster! I guess I'm the only one who feels that way, though. My movie-going companion (whose opinion I respect, I should add) was enamored with the picture all the way through, even laughing uproariously at what I thought were some of the most cringe-inducing moments in some time. It's already ranked on IMDb's top 250, though that's hardly a sign of high quality. Oh well. I'm happy enough in hating it. Easily the worst I've seen so far this year.