What is the point of this?

Rating: 1/10 (24 January 2007)

This is the worst kind of by the numbers Hollywood junk saved only by a handful of competent scenes & some good acting from 2 of the cast. This is a pity, especially given the presence of Greg Kinnear who has shown his talent in the past.
For a start Alan Arkin shaves his head, scruffs up & plays, a scruffy, bald Alan Arkin. He's the same in every movie I see him in & he bores me to tears. Will this guy ever take acting lessons & play a character for once that ISN'T him in jeans/ T-shirt... suit....army fatigues.... etc etc? Greg Kinnear plays a motivational speaker who's so afraid of "losing' that he is unable to win. Sadly this is a common theme in the US today, few, if any, such saps stop to think that not everyone can be a millionaire (because your millions will become devalued by the cash all the other millionaires are throwing around) & not everyone can rise to the top (who would clean the streets & stock our supermarket shelves?) etc etc.
The saddest thing about this pile of horse poo is it follows the same, old, tired, sexist line. See how all the male figures in the group are flakey in some sort of way. The son doesn't speak, the grandpa is a coke head & degenerate, suicidal Frank is... well suicidal, dad Richard is delusional about his motivational guff & so on. Only mommy holds things together, in a quiet, suppressed screaming way kind of way.
It is completely to very tired & highly sexist formula.
Olive, the daughter, seems almost like a doll dragged along, completely without any direction of hr own. Anyone can guess the outcome of her pageant appearance. Boring! Also predictable is the device of the dead body. This has been done a thousand times before & often a lot better, most notably in that laugh-until-you-need-oxygen Fawlty Towers episode.
Correll as Frank shows some talent, completely different from any of his previous appearances (something Alan Arkin could learn about). Dano as Dwayne must have had a hard time not talking on camera his face having to carry much of his emotions, but his lines must have been real easy to learn. His eventual implosion/explosion was impressive too.
Othe than that I see nothing new, it is an assembly of threads & scenes all seen & done before. Why on earth this is up for an Oscar I'll never know.