Love the Coopers: Movie Review
There are a lot of bad Christmas films out there centered on dysfunctional or unhappy people, “Surviving Christmas”, “Deck the Halls”, “Christmas with the Kranks”, just to name a few. Once in long while, we get one that actually works, like “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” or even “Bad Santa”. The new holiday family film “Love the Coopers” from director Jessie Nelson (“Corrina, Corrina”, “I am Sam”) is not very good, but it’s a whole lot better than most of its kind.
Although “Love the Coopers” is being marketed as a broad comedy, that is not the case. The film is suffering from a terrible marketing campaign as the studio most likely doesn’t know how to sell it as a dramatic-comedy. The trailers for the film are so off. Chances are if you liked the trailers, you will probably not enjoy the film and if you hated the trailers you might be surprised to find that for the most part it is an entertaining yet flawed and cliché piece of holiday fair. The extremely likable cast is really “Love the Coopers” saving grace.
Set on Christmas Eve, Sam Cooper (John Goodman) and his wife Charlotte (Diane Keaton) are having the whole Cooper clan over to the house for the holiday. However each member of the family is dealing with their own personal struggles/issues. Their son Hank (Ed Helms) has been out of work and his ex, Angie (Alex Borstein) doesn’t make things easier for him. Hank’s son Charlie (Timothée Chalamet) is dealing with first love issues and Charlie’s little sister Madison (Blake Baumgartner) has developed a bad habit.
Charlotte’s sister Emma (Marisa Tomei) has unresolved issues and to top things off, she gets arrested on Christmas Eve for shoplifting and spends the night in the back of Officer Williams (Anthony Mackie) squad car. Bucky (Alan Arkin) who is the grandfather, eats at the same lousy diner every day, just so he can talk to the sweet waitress Ruby (Amanda Seyfried) who he shares a deep connection with. Ruby also has her own past demons. Aunt Fishy (June Squibb), who suffers from alzheimer’s is on hand to bring up things that took place thirty years ago since that is mainly what she can remember.
Sam and Charlotte have their own issues as well and little does the family know that this could possibly be their last Christmas dinner together. One family member who is fully aware of their the couple’s unhappiness is their daughter Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) who doesn’t believe in love but manages to find herself in the film’s most predictable relationship with Joe (Jake Lacy), a soldier that she meets at the airport. However, despite their cliché romance, it is one of my favorite parts of the film.
“Love the Coopers” is narrated by Steve Martin and the story is told through the eyes of his character which isn’t revealed until the very end. Normally narrations feel out of place but here is worked for me. Maybe because I feel Keaton and Martin just haven’t worked enough together, that I would simply take what I could get. “Love the Coopers” is just slightly higher than mediocre but for those who need some Christmas in their local multiplex, this isn’t the disaster that the ads make it seem like.
By: Marc Ferman