This is Where I Leave You

   Based on the best selling novel by Jonathan Trooper, this new comedy/drama has a screenplay by Mr. Trooper and remains pretty faithful to the novel. It is the story of the Altman family who gather together when the father dies.  The adult children are played by Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Corey Stoller, and Adam Driver. Their mother is played by Jane Fonda. 

     Co-starring are Timothy Olyphant as Horry, the brain injured ex-boyfriend of Ms. Fey, Kathryn Hahn as Mr. Stoll's wife, Rose Bryne as a girl from Mr. Bateman's past, Connie Britton as Mr. Driver's girlfriend,  Ben Schwartz as the family rabbi and Debra Monk as Ms. Fonda's best friend. It's a very large ensemble film and everyone is well cast but play mostly to type. Standouts are Mr. Olyphant as Horry and Ms. Fonda  as the strong willed matriarch.

      There is the usual amount of sibling rivalry and infighting and this family has enough dysfunction that if Peter Jackson was directing, it would have been stretched to a trilogy. Secrets are kept and revealed, romances are rekindled and lost, and along the way there is humor and pathos. What worked in the novel begins to get tedious in the film as Mr. Trooper tries to jam all his ideas into a two hour film. It's also hard to share the wealth of the material when you have such a strong cast but director Shawn Levy does his best to give everyone a fair amount of screen time. The bulk of the heavy lifting falls to Mr. Bateman, who might as well be in an episode of "Arrested Development".