Review of The Guilt Trip (2012) by Michael M — 11 May 2013

I spent sixty cents on this movie at the Red Box and that's about what it's worth. I can't imagine seeing this in a multiplex and finding it satisfying. The one line summary "An inventor and his mom hit the road together" is about all there is to this supposedly comic film.

There are two routes this sort of thing can take: a revealing exploration of the mother and son bond resulting in changed lives and altered perspectives or a ribald comic road picture where mother and son get into the gosh darnedest scrapes.

The film aspires to both and achieves neither. The revelations at film's end are sweet, but hardly moving or worth waiting for. Seth Rogen does his trademark understated equivocation routine and Streisand tries to do her over-bearing mother smother routine - but both feel terribly false.

Both stars are also executive producers so chances are the idea of pushing themselves dramatically was the last thing on their minds. Frankly, both look a bit bored - characters and actors - and that left me a bit bored too.

But heck, it was only sixty cents.