However, sometimes there is a film that tries to appeal to both, widen it's core demographic, and just falls flat on it's face.
The Guilt Trip is a film that follows Andrew Brewster (Seth Rogen) who is an unsuccessful salesman. He has a brand new natural cleaning product, but he is just too shy to sell it. In steps his overpowering Mother, Joyce Brewster (Barbara Streisand) a widow who has too much time on her hands and too much enthusiasm for life, compared to her son. When Joyce tells Andrew about her long lost love, who just so happens to be an executive at a prestigious advertising company, Andrew suddenly doesn't mind having his Mother around and brings her on his cross-country trip in the hope that his product will finally sell.
The thing is, The Guilt Trip is a film that is billed as a comedy, but just isn't very funny. Now, this wouldn't be a bad thing, because the film plays out more like a family drama, but the problem starts because the film is being advertised and marketed as a comedy. It's almost like it's an American idea of what dry British humour is, when it's really not. Most of the jokes fall flat, or there are large stretches of the film where jokes aren't even attempted. I just had a problem because I went in expecting to have a few laughs, but I came out feeling decidedly mute. Seth Rogen was surprisingly tame, after coming from previous comedic films such as Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express - all great American style comedies. And Barbara Streisand was... well, just as unfunny as she was in the Meet the Parents sequels.
However, The Guilt Trip is fairly good as a family drama - not great, but fairly good. There's a slight moment of drama when Joyce opens up to her son about her previous true love (before meeting his Father.) Of course, there's Andrew's constant struggle to sell his new product, when his attitude keeps getting in the way. And finally there is the general clash of personalities between Mother and Son when travelling in the car together, but it all just feels half baked. It felt like the script needed a bit more tweaking before filming began, because although these conflicts were all there, they just weren't developed enough to cause enough drama. Joyce's revelation about her true love is all but diminished in the final scene (which can be guessed what will happen right from the beginning of the film), Andrew just does not help himself at all when trying to sell his product (even though what he needs to do is so obvious to the audience) and Andrew and Joyce's personalities just aren't opposing enough to cause enough drama or comedic moments.
Direction from Anne Fletcher (Step Up, 27 Dresses and The Proposal) is quite uninspired, as The Guilt Trip ends up looking like every other big-budget glossy Hollywood production, which would have been fine if she was directing a straightforward comedy, but instead the film was a mishmash of wannabe gritty drama and fluffy light comedy, with a bog-standard direction from Fletcher that failed to give her film any sort of visual punch.
Whereas Rogen's previous dramatic efforts, such as 50/50, really were able to pull at heartstrings and grab the audience by the jugular, The Guilt Trip fails to hit the right spots for laughs or for tears. If you're a diehard fan of Rogen or Streisand, then this film may keep you entertained, but for the general film-going audience, this film is a bit of a drag.
** / *****
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