Starring: Diane Keaton, John Goodman and Alan Arkin
Directed by: Jessie Nelson
Rated: R
Running time: 1 hr 46 mins
CBS Films
Our Score: 2 out of 5 stars
The holidays are the time to rekindle friendships and spend with your family. Unless you’re the Coopers. After spending time with them you won’t know whether to hang the mistletoe or yourself!
Charlotte (Keaton) and Sam (Goodman, in a very strong supporting turn) have been married for 40-years. But the magic is gone and they have decided to split up. However, with the holidays approaching, Charlotte convinces Sam to wait until Christmas, so that the entire family can be told the new. Sam agrees. Cue the family.
A mismatch of a movie if ever I’ve seen one, “Love the Coopers” is full of incomplete characters and so many cliché’s stolen from other holiday films that it could have been called “Love Actually 2 – This Time it Sucks!” And let me quickly take the time to apologize to filmmaker Richard Curtis for daring to mention his perennial Holiday gem to this lump of coal. You have the old man (Arkin) who, for whatever creepy reason, has a crush on the young girl (Amanda Seyfried) who brings him his breakfast every day at the local diner. You have the unemployed son (Ed Helms basically playing Ed Helms) divorcing from the shrew, with kids they barely look at. The hot but misunderstood daughter (Olivia Wilde) who can never seem to find love. And the sister (Marisa Tomei) who spends her days shoplifting but is easy to talk to. How can this busy film be any worse? By making sure that none of the characters, with the exception of Keaton and Goodman, are fully fleshed out, you end up hoping would come and go so you could die the same. Not sure to blame screenwriter Steven Rogers, who is no Captain America here, of director Nelson, who in the past has written such depressing films as “Stepmom” (with Rogers), “The Story of Us” and “I Am Sam.” There are a few fun moments, many of them brought about by the great June Squibb as Aunt Fishy, but the rest are as depressing as pumpkin pie without whipped cream!