The Family Stone--a poorly told, mean-spirited, cautionary tale

I finally saw The Family Stone. July isn't such a great time to see a Christmas movie, but I didn't bother to see it when it was at the theater because it didn't sound like it was very good. Now that I've seen it, I can report that it is absolutely terrible, except for a devilishly good performance by the always under-rated Sarah Jessica Parker, and the expected good performance by the great Diane Keaton.

I am writing about it, however, because it contains a really nasty message. The Stone family is painted to be ultra-liberal. One of the sons is both deaf and gay, and his partner is black. The film goes out of the way to show how very accepted they are. The entire family has learned how to sign, which is as it should be, but having them constantly signing is a way to show how progressive and sensitive they are.

Only they are not. This is one nasty family. If you saw The Aviator, then recall the depiction of Katherine Hepburn's family, and how mean they were to Howard Hughes when Hepburn--knowing they will tear him to shreds--brings him to the family home for lunch. The Family Stone is judgmental, petty, vicious, and nuts. The screenwriters give them a bit of slack by having the mother dying of breast cancer. But whereas in Pieces of April, the mother (played by Patricia Clarkson) who is dying of breast cancer is the acerbic, sometimes intolerable, one, almost the entire family in The Family Stone comes across mean.

I say "almost" because the men in the film are actually not so bad. The father is a bit passive, but he is basically decent. The gay son is nice, the boring and somewhat pretentious fiance of Sarah Jessica Parker's character is okay, and the other son, played by Luke Wilson, represents the warmth and humanity in the family. Even one of the daughers is not too bad. The family's meanness is directed by the mother and the other daughter, and the family goes along with it, making them all perpetrators, and portraying the family, as a system, as intolerant and snobbish.

The Sarah Jessica Parker character is a cartoon, but Parker makes the most of the role. She is, admittedly, not the most socially sensitive person in the world, but she has potential. Since she herself is a misfit, we sense it would not take too much for her to gain some empathy toward the oppressed. But the Family Stone's teaching methods are brutal, so we end up sympathizing with the "insenstive" one.

I believe this is the way many people see liberals and progressives, and indeed, it may be the way we have become, at least sometimes. It is hard for us to understand intolerance and social and ecological ignorance. But are our manners that bad? I doubt it. I know mine are not. And of course, the other message in The Family Stone is that the family would be nicer if the women would just stop being so vicious.

In the end, the Family Stone softens toward the Sarah Jessica Parker character, but only after they have done everything but tar and feather her. And, in a scene reminiscent of Joan Cusack's Stevie Nicks moment in School of Rock, she begins to unwind and show that she is human and not an automaton. The Diane Keaton character dies, and everyone becomes all warm and fuzzy. But I didn't feel that way at all.