Cast: Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Luke Wilson, Ty Giordano, Brian White, Elizabeth Reaser, Paul Schneider.

Family Christmases are treacherous, there’s so much buried history and unresolved pain and everyone gets together pretending to be jolly while year-long absences have allowed a needed divergence and individuation. Coming together, suppressed covert resentment and insecurities seethe – in most families, that is. Not so much in the exceedingly healthy Stone family, even with the added stress of partners. Granted Sibyl, the mom (Diane Keaton), otherwise loving and warmly welcoming, is outrageously outspoken and provocative and nursing a secret tragedy. And youngest daughter Amy (Rachel McAdams) is nastily critical and cynical, albeit unconsciously missing a romantic entanglement with the man who “popped her cherry”, Brad Stevenson (Paul Schneider).

Oldest son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) brings home Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker), a completely unsuitable and uptight WASP-ish girl whose insecurities are melodramatic in their conviction. Meredith belongs to the majority, first type of family, evidently. The Stones, despite their differences and the unexpected aberrations in the area of romantic partner of their oldest son, are unusual: remarkably united, loving and supportive, especially in the person of their youngest son (Ty Giordano) deaf and gay, with a loving partner of his own, Patrick (Brian White) who happens to be black. None of these are the slightest cause for comment to anyone except Meredith, self-consciously trying too hard to be liberal and inadvertently showing her anxiety-based prejudices at every step.

On arrival, Meredith projects her insecurities and anxiety onto the Stones, who fall completely into the trap of agreeing that she is not good enough for Everett – with the exception of second son Ben Stone (Luke Wilson). Ben is as laid back as Everett is restrained and rigid. Ben is obviously Meredith’s antidote. Meredith, in panic and needing reinforcement, summons her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to join her. Julie, warm and self-assured, is obviously perfect for Everett. Sibyl is dismayed at what she is certain is Everett’s choice in a future bride and has enormous difficulty letting him have the family stone – her mother’s engagement diamond, promised to the eldest son on his marriage. By the time she comes round to trust Everett, the available romantic partners have done a dosey-do and Christmas is rather more chaotically than usual upon them.

Within the basic sit-com plot, writer/director Thomas Bezucha’s warm, very real characters are fleshed enough to give satisfying character arcs and the performances are without exception sympathetic and recognizable. With witty, very funny dialogue, the humour ranges from subtle to hilarious, broad physical comedy and for much of the film the audience in the screening I attended was laughing helplessly, in between delighted and horrified gasps at the unfolding dramas.

The Family Stone is an engaging, life-affirming, feel-good movie on a theme of acceptance. There’s an interesting motif of the complementarity of successful relationships, and how the individuality and self-acceptance of one’s apparent opposite can allow a borrowing of those qualities we admire in our loved one to make us more balanced. A lovely, funny date-movie. One with your family, perhaps. Or not.

© Avril Carruthers        10^th December  2005