Review of The Guilt Trip (2012) by Clarisesamuels — 02 Oct 2013

As far as road trip movies go, it could be argued that this film is nothing special, except that it stars Barbra Streisand in almost every scene, which make is extremely special indeed. Still beautiful at 71, and having gained a little weight which just serves to make her more endearing, Streisand still has that translucent, ivory skin that has an almost ethereal quality to it, and she still frosts her hair to perfection. Her character is fascinating because, if I’m not mistaken, this is the closest she has come to giving her audience what may very well be a small glimpse of her real self. Although her character is certainly meant to be exaggerated and comical, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, there appears to be a momentary unveiling of Streisand in the real-life roles she has played as wife, lover, and mother. Especially mother. Especially Jewish mother.

As the mother of an organic chemist (played by Seth Rogan) in his late twenties, who has invented his own non-toxic cleaning product made entirely out of edible ingredients, Streisand’s character, Joyce, displays every kind of maternal sentiment when she gets to travel with her son on an eight-day cross-country road trip. The purpose of the trip is to sell her son's product to K-Mart, Costco, and other big distributors. Sometimes Joyce's maternal impulses are in direct conflict, since she is both neurotically possessive of her son’s love and attention (the father is deceased), and at the same time deeply troubled that her son is still unmarried. She tries to play matchmaker even as she tries to convince herself that she is all her son needs.

She is overly nostalgic about the past, particularly about the days when her adult child was a little boy, and she falls asleep watching home videos. She fondly remembers when her little scientist used to do experiments in the basement wearing goggles that were four times bigger than his head. She loves to collect tchotchkes, and the ones with frog motifs are her favorite--her house is nearly overwhelmed with frogs. She frets that her son chose to leave his home with her in New Jersey to attend graduate school in California and fears that he did so to get away from her. She also has a fear of remarriage or connection with any other man because she never got over a true love who readily gave her up over thirty years earlier when she had an offer of marriage from the man who became her husband.

The road trip is a time of confrontation with all her conflicting emotions about her son, and she is forced to confront the ghosts from her past. Seth Rogan is unusually sensitive and understated in this film; it would seem that working with Streisand brings out the best in him. And there are scenes where it is possible that the two of them are ad-libbing. The most entertaining scene is when Mom enters a restaurant contest to see if she can, within an hour, eat a full meal that includes a 4.5 lb steak. The prize is that the meal is free if she succeeds. Watching Streisand’s character eat like a horse is actually very entertaining (“food is love,” she tells her son), and if Streisand is anything like that in real life, you have to bless that girl’s healthy appetite. A must for die-hard fans of Barbra Streisand.