Review of The Guilt Trip (2012) by Jesse O — 02 May 2013

If I'm going to be fair, Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand make this film more watchable than it probably had any right to be. I think they have good chemistry and, again, make this film better than it would've been otherwise.

That's not to say I think it's a good movie, because it's not. The script reads like an extended episode of a sitcom. Guy goes on a road trip with his mom, they get into convoluted and unrealistic hi-jinks, they learn some things about themselves on the way and everything ends up perfectly at the end.

This sounds like every generic episode of a sitcom. That's not to say the movie doesn't have its moments of heart and warmth because the ending is actually quite sweet. With the film being set-up the way it is, it's not like I was expecting a complex examination on the relationship between a son and his mother.

That's not really the problem, I knew the type of film I was getting for the get-go. I wasn't deluding myself into thinking that this film was going to be something that it wasn't meant to be.

I just wish it tried to be funnier, instead of third-rate comedy you'd see on a TBS sitcom. I really don't have much to say about the film, as it really speaks for itself. Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand are the only redeeming qualities to this film, shame that the script just lets them down horribly with a cliched script and unfunny moments.