pretend family of drug smugglers grows into real family

Rating: 8/10 (27 August 2013)

Where most comedies depict families overcoming their tensions and outside threats to reaffirm their unity, in We're the Millers four non- or even anti-family characters discover the rewards of being a family. The children in David's (Jason Sudeikis) pretend family, Kenny (Will Poulter) and Casey (Emma Roberts), are refugees from single-parent neglect and homelessness, respectively. The parents-to-be, David and Rose (Jennifer Aniston), are moderate outlaws, he a small-time drug dealer, she a virtuous stripper. Surprisingly, they will find success, fulfillment and comfort in the alien language and posture of conventional parents. So the stripper's real name turns out to be -- Sarah, the tormented but ultimately blessed wife of the patriarch Abraham. The nebbish David ultimately brings down two drug Goliaths.
The conventional comedy disrupts a situation of familial and social order, then subdues the chaos in the last scene, restoring order. Here we start with chaos that erupts into something like order. The outlaws eventually go straight and all four loners take advantage of the Witness Protection Program to set up a home together. That protects them less from the drug bosses than from their own impulses to be loners. Though they ultimately live the front of a normal family --as they did even in their initial bickering and anger -- the foreground marijuana plants suggests the family will retain their off-beat character and charm. They return to a new improved, harmonized chaos.
This film's success is partly due to its inventive plot, winning performances and hilarious script. But it also reads as a barometer of its time. The many film references assume an audience with shared film and TV experience. Because the drug on which the heist plot turns is grass, and David is a virtuous dealer (e.g., he won't sell to minors, he helps the kids in distress) the film has no problem in letting our heroes get away unpunished for their huge smuggling attempt. The film reads the public's distinction between grass and hard drugs on the scale of danger and criminality.
It's also au courant in stretching the range of "normal" both in what constitutes family values and sexual identity. Here you don't have to be born and raised together to make a family. It's enough to come to care for each other and to want to stay connected. This is a story of people who made themselves -- out of the most unpromising material -- into a family. That's just as good as being born into one. For more see www.yacowar.blogspot.com.