Review: "This Is Where I Leave You"

I'm not sure if "This Is Where I Leave You" is the most original film ever made, but what it lacks in freshness it makes up for with delectable actors and snappy scenes. The Altmans are borderline crazy, self-obsessed and narcissistic, but somehow 103 minutes with them feels like time well spent.

Directed by Shawn Levy ("Night at the Museum") from a screenplay by Jonathan Tropper, based on his own novel, the movie brings together the four adult children of the Altman clan after their father passes away. Mom Hillary (Jane Fonda) is a real piece of work, a showboating therapist who wrote a best-selling book, "Cradle and All," in which she spilled the intimate details of her kids' tumultuous upraising.

They have not, unsurprisingly, turned into well-adjusted adults. And they're none too pleased about their mom's insistence that they sit Shiva together for seven days, per their father's dying request. (This, despite being only partially and nominally Jewish.)

Judd (Jason Bateman) is the fulcrum, the character upon which all the others pivot. A successful radio producer and one of those guys who seems to have the perfect little life planned out, he's thrown for a loop when he catches his wife sleeping with his boss.

Sister Wendy (Tina Fey) is brittle and angry, mother to two young kids and married to an on-the-go businessman who can't put down the phone and work for even a few minutes, not to mention witness the miracle if his child's potty training.

Paul (Corey Stoll) is the oldest and most responsible, the one kid who stuck around in his hometown to take over the business from his father. He and his wife (Kathryn Hahn) have been trying without success to get pregnant, and the pressure and constant questions about their progress is like splitting a rail.

The baby of the clan is Phillip (Adam Driver), born years after the others and partially raised by them. A natural-born screw-up with an impish talent for needling others, Phillip is dating a much older woman (Connie Britton) who acts as his enabler and sugar momma.

The filmmakers essentially throw this grab-bag of resentment, sibling rivalry and neuroticism into a pot and set it to a slow boil. There are arguments, jokes, bonding, more fighting, and so on.

It doesn't sound like much, but the cast really drives the material to terrific heights. They click in a way that you rarely see large ensemble casts do; usually each actor is trying to accomplish their own goals for their character and sacrifice the group dynamic. This is the sort of movie that you can't imagine any other performers in those roles.

A few minor characters flit in and out of the foreground. Across the street is Hillary's dependable friend Linda (Debra Monk) and her son Horry (Timothy Olyphant), a former beau of Wendy's who suffered a terrible brain injury years ago. He sort of wanders around, helpful but forgetful, like a more verbally proficient Boo Radley.

Wade's estranged wife (Abigail Spencer) turns up, pleading for a second chance and with more drama to share. Penny Moore is a townie (Rose Byrne) who's stoked a long-burning fire for Wade, and he's at a low point where those glowing embers are looking pretty good. I also enjoyed Ben Schwartz as a young rabbi who can't outrun his horndog teen reputation and nickname.

Despite not a lot of screen time to spread around to every character's story, the film does a good job of making each of them distinct and relatable.

"This Is Where I Leave You" plays out fairly predictably, but I didn't mind the lack of surprises because the journey getting there is so caustically funny and unexpectedly heartwarming. When the Altmans aren't verbally punching each other -- sometimes physically, too -- you want to give them all a good squeeze.

Reeling Backward: "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"

I don't know of any other movie with a title that seems to fit its subject matter less than this 1969 classic starring Jane Fonda and directed by Sydney Pollack. At least, that was my first impression.

I had assumed, like many others I think, that "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" was a Western. I should have been clued in by the presence of star Jane Fonda and director Sydney Pollack, both of whom are more associated with modern urban settings than tumbleweeds and six-shooters. (Though I should note that each has done a quasi-Western: Fonda in "Cat Ballou," and Pollack with "Jeremiah Johnson.")

No, it's about, of all things, a Depression-era dance marathon. These things were apparently quite the hit during the tumultuous '30s, as hard-luck young folks would submit themselves to the ultimate endurance test in order to win a nice little wad of cash.

The rules, as laid out in the pre-dance registration, are simple: Partners must keep their knees from hitting the floor, or they're out. They must keep moving the entire time they're on the dance floor. If somebody's partner is ruled out, the surviving one has 24 hours to find a new partner (of the appropriate gender -- no same-sex dancing) or they're out. They get a 10-minute break every two hours to use the bathroom, eat, sleep, etc.

And this would go on for weeks at a time.

In "Horses," they get to 1,200 hours or so before the film ends. (Note I don't say the dance ends.) Why would anyone do this, other than the absolutely desperate? More importantly, why would anyone pay to watch this spectacle of suffering?

Those uncomfortable questions are what the movie is really about.

Fonda plays Gloria, a hard-bitten dame whose partner is disqualified before the competition even starts due to ill health. So she's paired up with Robert (Michael Sarrazin), a naive, passive drink of water who wanders into the dance hall out of curiosity. Curiously, the opening and closing sequences are told from his perspective, as he witnesses a lame horse being put down as a boy, and later being sentenced to jail for a crime. The original novel by Horace McCoy was written with Robert as the protagonist, but that changed when a big star like Fonda was cast in the female lead.

I don't mind, since Gloria is by far the more compelling character. But Robert is such a complete non-entity, a guy who reacts to everything going on around him, that it seems strange to retain the framing device centered around him. Couldn't they show Gloria as a girl being moved to tears by a horse being shot?

There's a terrific supporting cast, led by Gig Young as Rocky, the carny-like showman who's running the dance competition. He has to stay round the clock just like the contestants, but he pulls all the strings.

Rocky's not above manipulating the contestants to jazz up the show, such as stealing an impressionable woman's prize dress, knowing that in her sleep-deprived state it will send her over the edge. Dressed in a tux, barking into the microphone to urge the crowd to cheer the contestants on as they literally kill themselves on the dance floor, Rocky is like some cynical jester mocking American ideals even as he espouses them, punctuated by his trademark "Yowza! Yowza! Yowza!"

Red Buttons plays Sailor -- he's never given an actual name -- a dance marathon veteran who's over the hill, but still battling. He claims to be 31 years old, but his gray hair and lined face say otherwise. He knows all the tricks Rocky can throw at them, and altruistically gives advice to the kids to help them along.

Susannah York plays Alice, a British stage actress who's been talked into the marathon by a huckster who claims it'll help her break into showbiz. With her refined manners and slightly haughty attitude, she's instantly disliked by the other contestants. But when her mind becomes unstitched by the slow sleepless torture, the pity for her his palpable.

Bruce Dern and Bonnie Bedelia plays a husband-and-wife team of destitute sharecroppers who see the marathon as a way to get regular meals, if nothing else. She's pregnant, and Gloria cold-heartedly berates her for not having an abortion or giving the child away, since they obviously don't have the means to care for it.

The cruelest part of the competition is the Derby, literally a run for life and death. The remaining partners are lined up for a speed-walk race around an oval for 10 minutes, and the three couples that come in last are eliminated. Consider what it must be like to exert oneself full-out for 10 minutes without a break after days and weeks of only resting two hours a day. The pained look on Sailor's face as he huffs around the circle, determined not to lose, makes plain that these dance marathons were just a half-step up from gladiator fighting.

"They Shoot Horses, Don't They" is hardly what I expected, but it's not to be missed.

3.5 stars out of four

UPDATE: My Dad e-mailed me to remind me that Gig Young won an Oscar for best supporting actor. I actually knew that, and meant to include it in the review, but it got lost in the shuffle.