Today’s Prayer Focus

This Is Where I Leave You

MPA Rating: R-Rating (MPA) for language, sexual content and some drug use.
Moral Rating: not reviewed
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Adults
Genre: Comedy
Length: 1 hr. 43 min.
Year of Release: 2014
USA Release: September 19, 2014 (wide—2,750+ theaters)
DVD: December 16, 2014
Copyright, Warner Bros.click photos to ENLARGE Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros. Copyright, Warner Bros.
Relevant Issues
Copyright, Warner Bros.

strained family relationships

mourning of the dead in the Bible

shiva/shivah (in Judaism) = a period of seven days’ formal mourning for the dead of close relations, beginning immediately after the funeral

death in the Bible

marriage and divorce in the Bible

GAY—What’s wrong with being gay? Answer
Homosexual behavior versus the Bible: Are people born gay? Does homosexuality harm anyone? Is it anyone’s business? Are homosexual and heterosexual relationships equally valid?

What about gays needs to change? Answer
It may not be what you think.

Featuring Jason BatemanJudd Altman
Tina FeyWendy Altman
Jane Fonda … Hillary Altman
Adam DriverPhillip Altman
Rose ByrnePenny Moore
Corey Stoll … Paul Altman
Kathryn Hahn … Alice Altman
Connie Britton … Tracy Sullivan
Timothy OlyphantHorry Callen
Dax Shepard … Wade Beaufort
See all »
Director Shawn Levy — “Real Steel” (2011), “Night at the Museum” (2006)
Producer 21 Laps Entertainment
Spring Creek Productions
Warner Bros.
Distributor Distributor: Warner Brothers Pictures. Trademark logo.Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company
Copyrighted, Warner Bros.

Here’s what the distributor says about their film: “A Jewish family that isn't used to observing their faith's traditions is forced to fulfill their father's final wish and sit Shivah together for an entire week and confront their problems.

Based on the novel This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper which is described as follows:

The death of Judd Foxman’s father marks the first time that the entire Foxman family-including Judd’s mother, brothers, and sister-have been together in years. Conspicuously absent: Judd’s wife, Jen, whose fourteen-month affair with Judd’s radio-shock-jock boss has recently become painfully public.

Simultaneously mourning the death of his father and the demise of his marriage, Judd joins the rest of the Foxmans as they reluctantly submit to their patriarch’s dying request: to spend the seven days following the funeral together. In the same house. Like a family.

As the week quickly spins out of control, longstanding grudges resurface, secrets are revealed, and old passions reawakened. For Judd, it’s a weeklong attempt to make sense of the mess his life has become while trying in vain not to get sucked into the regressive battles of his madly dysfunctional family. All of which would be hard enough without the bomb Jen dropped the day Judd’s father died: She’s pregnant.”


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Neutral
Neutral—Just saw this movie, and it was okay, not a great movie, but not awful, until the end where Jane Fonda engages in a long and lingering lesbian kiss and comes out as lesbian.
Karen H.
Negative
Negative—I watched this movie last night with my wife after seeing the previews, the preview portrayed a very different picture to what the movie actually was. Right from the start the movie opens with quite a graphic sex scene, from there on its not very funny, they try and build up to some funny scenes, these are mostly over powered by foul language. The F-Bomb is dropped quite a few times, The Lord’s name was taken in vain probably about 20 times.

This is not a relaxing movie to watch and I felt rather disappointed after watching this on a relaxed date night. All being said, the movie is rated R so I did expect it, but felt the movie could have done a lot better without all the bad language, sex, adultery and drug use.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 4½
Wessel, age 30 (South Africa)
Movie Critics
…forced …All-star cast, but a contrived family… Between the layers of infidelity, cancer, brain damage and pregnancy, there are the supposedly hilarious oversized breast implants, a toddler with a potty chair and a rabbi named “Boner.”… [2/4]
Liam Lacey, The Globe and Mail
…It is wildly inappropriate. Everything—and really, I do mean everything—about this movie is based on sex. …
Susan Ellingburg, Crosswalk
…it's set-up, joke, set-up, joke. The applause lines even have space around them, dead air there for you to fill, as the director pauses — hopefully — for your laugh. It's everything that goes into a movie, except the movie. …Not only does it feel like a trailer; if you've seen the trailer, you've already really seen the movie. …
Stephen Whitty, The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)
…limp, lukewarm dramedy …Although the ratio of comedy to drama becomes increasingly weighted toward tearjerking, few of the emotional moments are realistic or effective. …
Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
faintly preposterous with its network-TV notion of a dysfunctional family—and nobody, not nobody, in real life talks about their feelings this much outside of a therapist’s couch . …
Kimberley Jones, The Austin Chronicle
…“This Is Where I Leave You” is the rare film that improves as it goes along, even gaining some emotional traction as one character reveals a surprise pregnancy and, yes, another comes out of the closet to the astonished family. … [3/4]
Lou Lumenick, New York Post
…has too many characters and often becomes a sex farce… strong humanist references, a brief pro-homosexual subplot, lots of foul language, and other strong crude content…
Ted Baehr, Movieguide
a lot of sexual sleaze paired with harsh profanity… There’s no fun at all in this dysfunction. …
Adam R. Holz, Plugged In

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