Review of This Is Where I Leave You (2014) by Liam C — 22 Oct 2014

Any film that leaves you with a smile on your face after you've seen it must have done something right, right? This Is Where I Leave You is a lot better than expected featuring good performances and a lot of heart.

It starts off with a few bad scenarios for the lead character and then goes to its plot of having all the characters living under one roof and trying to get along, which isn't particularly unique but I think this film actually did it right by giving enough time to develop characters and before all was said and done I actually knew a lot about these people and I actually liked them. The cast helps, all the actors play their parts well and really make what is happening on screen worth watching. It is good that the film is actually funny too and I found myself laughing quite often.

At first I thought I knew where the plot was going after the first few minutes and I was surprised, while it doesn't totally avoid some predictability, it offers enough interesting things to keep you interested and it has quite a good amount of touching moments. The scenes where it is just two people sitting together talking about life I found to be the best and it takes away from some of the goofiness that can occasionally happen.

Like I said, while it does have some touching and funny moments, there are some scenes that do come out of nowhere, one scene in particular involving a bed I thought was funny at the time but could have been completely cut out because it doesn't go anywhere and is completely forgotten about, much like a couple of its characters. While it does do a good job of developing the 'main' characters, two in particular are thrown to the wayside, one who actually had some importance to the plot and the other who really didn't. Rose Byrne's character is quite important to the overall story and she is hardly on screen but still remains very likeable. Timothy Olyphant has some set up but he doesn't really do anything and could have been left out. If the film was a little longer, perhaps, maybe they'd be okay but there is too much going on to give everyone equal attention. And sometimes the music would just blare in and it becomes hard to hear what people are saying.

This isn't a spoiler but I am not too happy with a big plot twist near the end, the film has a nice little story and seems to be wrapping up nicely but then has a plot twist that isn't awful but it really did not need to be there and feels like a like minute thing to try to get a reaction out of the audience, it's probably in the book too but still, it does feel quite cheap and you might be thinking that the obvious might happen but trust me, even though I have mentioned this, you still won't be able to guess it.

Its a harmless film that does what it sets out to do quite well and actually has some things to say and I really enjoyed it. Trim off some of the unnecessary characters and centre the focus and what is already good could have been great. Perhaps I should read the book...