Review: This Is Where I Leave You

City Paper grade: C

Everybody’s got problems, but the problems of affluent, unhappy, white Judeo-Christian clans just translate better to film, don’t they? This Is Where I Leave You, based on Jonathan Tropper’s novel, takes this theory and stretches it to the point of snapping, peddling enough prepackaged dysfunction to stock Jennifer Weiner’s cupboards for a calendar year. After the passing of their father, bickering siblings Judd (Jason Bateman), Wendy (Tina Fey), Phillip (Adam Driver) and Paul (Corey Stoll) convene at the home of their pop-psychologist mother Hillary (Jane Fonda), as dad’s dying wish was to have his secular progeny sit shiva for seven days. And wouldn’t you know it, they don’t get along. Judd, newly cuckolded thanks to wife’s affair with his scumbag boss (Dax Shepard), plays exasperated referee to the squabbles, centered around sex, money, kids and business, while reigniting a relationship with Penny (Rose Byrne), a lighthearted townie on heavy antidepressants. Things get busy quickly with this many miserable people under one roof, and the clutter drowns out the handful of genuinely warm moments the kids are able to cobble together. The supporting cast, worked for laughs (Ben Schwartz as a zany rabbi) or what could be construed as sympathy (Timothy Olyphant, as a neighbor with a brain injury?), represent even more frayed ambitions, as if this family didn’t have enough of those already.