This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Without a comma, the title "Love the Coopers" becomes an imperative, but no amount of cajoling or browbeating can make me love the insufferable family in this sledgehammer-subtle holiday comedy.
Charlotte Cooper (Diane Keaton) is determined to stage a perfect Christmas for her family, except that her family is falling apart. Her husband, Sam (John Goodman), is about to leave her after 40 years of marriage. Their son, Hank (Ed Helms), is unemployed and divorced. Their daughter, Eleanor (Olivia Wilde), dreads making the trip home and, at the airport, persuades a snowbound soldier (Jake Lacy) to masquerade as her boyfriend. Charlotte's sister, Emma (Marisa Tomei), shoplifts a Christmas gift and gives psychiatric advice to a cop (Anthony Mackie) from the back of his squad car. Charlotte's father, Bucky (Alan Arkin), is heartbroken to learn his favorite diner waitress, Ruby (Amanda Seyfried), is moving away. Hank's teen son, Charlie (Timothée Chalamet), pines for his first kiss. And Sam's aunt Fishy (June Squibb) can barely remember him.
Screenwriter Steven Rogers ("Stepmom," "P.S. I Love You") ties these sitcom subplots together with a grating reliance on flashbacks and on an omnipresent narrator (Steve Martin) whose actual identity is a surprise only to those not paying attention.
Director Jessie Nelson, making her first movie since 2001's "I Am Sam," lets her cast shout regularly in the misguided belief that louder equals funnier. There's not an honest, genuine moment in the entire movie — not even when the camera is trained on the Cooper family's dog.
'Love the Coopers'
Opens Friday, Nov. 13, in theaters everywhere; rated PG-13 for thematic elements, language, and some sexuality; 106 minutes.