Chosen Family

In charmless cheap drama "Chosen Family" Heather Graham's an upper-class US East coast community's yoga teacher with awful parents, addict sister Julia Stiles (the best aspect of this tripe) who blames her for her woes, and dire taste in men til she meets John Brotherton who seems perfect (to her & her pals anyway - to any ordinary person he'd surely seem a smug dweeb) though he too has issues - with obnoxious 7yr old daughter Ella Grace Helton. It is cringe-worthily abysmal. Graham screwed up SO badly in her second film as writer / director (after 2018's "Half Magic"). For a WAY better movie with a similar theme try "I'll Be Right There", cos this turd stinks.

Greetings again from the darkness. It's feasible for a filmmaker to have the best intentions with a project, and for whatever reason, the end result just not be satisfying. This appears to be the case with this latest from Heather Graham, who wrote, directs, and stars in a film meant to inspire us to take control of our own life and stop blaming others for the obstacles or our own poor decisions.

Ms. Graham (BOOGIE NIGHTS, 1997) stars as Ann, a self-described people-pleaser who teaches yoga at a studio she doesn't own in a coastal Rhode Island community that looks to be somewhat affluent. Somehow, her sparsely attended yoga classes must pay well, as Ann lives in a stunning home overlooking the water. Her first mission is to pick up her sister Clio (Julia Stiles, 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, 1999) from drug rehab and drop her at their parents' house. Dad (Michael Gross) is a religious zealot constantly accusing Ann of "living in sin", while Mom (Julie Halston) is filled with regret that she never pursued the singing career she desired. This is Ann's family, so given the film's title, you can likely guess where this is headed.

In contrast to her chaotic family, Ann has a group of very close friends who support her. Max (Thomas Lennon, "Reno 911") is opening a new waterfront restaurant with the help of his wife Francis (Odessa Rae) and their friend Roz (Andrea Savage, STEP BROTHERS, 2008). Ann's poor/comical track record with boyfriends is a constant point of discussion, and Max introduces her to his contractor, Steve (John Brotherton, FURIOUS 7, 2015). Steve is a nice man and the two hit it off.

Things change quickly when Steve agrees to introduce Ann to his daughter Lilly (Ella Grace Helton), who hasn't handled her parents' divorce very well. That's an understatement. In fact, Lilly displays the psychotic behavior of someone who has been a psychopath-in-training for years. She's manipulative and vindictive, and has no intention of letting Ann come between her and good ol' dad.

I'd like to say this piece of the story is overdone to the extreme, but again, that would be an understatement ... one capped off with a totally inappropriate hip-hop dance contest between Ann and Steve's child, Lilly. This happens around the time that Ann posts an all-too-honest vlog while wearing a bikini and dissing her family. Somehow, all of this is supposed to be played as comedy, but mostly it's kind of pathetic seeing grown adults act the way they do here. At least Lilly's obnoxious behavior can be explained as a young kid going through a stressful destruction of the only life she's known.

Ann's vlog brings her notoriety as an influencer, yet she continues to kowtow to Steve, her parents, and her sister. Things come to a head when Ann gets her big yoga break on stage at an exposition. Chaos ensues on stage and it (finally) awakens something in Ann.

We get a quick dose of a horrific backstory involving Ann and Clio as kids, but it's never explored, and Ms. Graham handles most of Ann's scenes with a mixture of bug eyes and squinting in disbelief. The end result may not be what we've come to expect from movies, but it's the sensible finale that gives meaning to the film's title. There is very little real humor in this comedy, and though just about any of the story lines could have been more fully developed, we are instead left with a mishmash of Ann's own making ... which turns out to be the moral of the story.

Available for digital download beginning April 21, 2025.

I love Julia Stiles in most of her movies but this was not her best role. This whole movie was not impressive. The actors did not contribute much to a good story line and the ending was so disappointing. I'm just glad I didn't watch this in theatre and pay more than I did. They did not put much effort into building the love story which is what the movie seemed to be about. The beginning was a lot of build up of the main character's love life and how disastrous it has been, which would make you think the ending would end with a love story that ended in a happy ending but instead it ends Completely opposite and random. It was overall disappointing and wouldn't recommend.

"Your family is only as happy as its least happy member." When it comes to Ann's family, the least happy person seems to rotate as fast as the lazy susan on your countertop. Heather Graham stars as the Ann in question, and her very screwed-up family consists of younger sister, Clio (Julia Stiles), father Alfred (Michael Gross) and mom Dorothy (Julie Halston). Each member of the family comes with their own box of smashed chocolates. And it appears to be Ann's assignment to keep them all happy, keep all the balls in the air, even while her own dreams remain stagnant.

The happy family combo is definitely off the menu here. Clio has just been released from rehab and her parents are too self-involved to pick her up at the center to bring her home. Dorothy feels lost in her decades long marriage and is trying to reinvent herself with bizarre YouTube renditions of old standards. And dad Alfred spends most of his time belitting Ann with verses from scripture about her wicked ways. No wonder Ann has tried to find an oasis outside the family she was born into, turning to bad relationships but also having good friends to keep her grounded.

It sounds like the story would come with big jokes but, really, there's very little humor, which I personally found unexpected. The film is written and directed by Graham and EP'd by Julia Styles. I got the impression that the two were comparing notes on some real-life scenarios and bad choices that they've experienced and decided to make a movie about. Dating unavailable men. Dating men with children. Dating men who are children. Perhaps the scenes with the parents were meant to be funny, since both of them are a bit on the extreme side. But if they were going for humor, it felt more uncomfortable than amusing.

Set in Rhode Island, Ann is a yoga teacher, living in what appears to be a seaside village in a stunning multi-story home. Do yoga instructors make that much money in Rhode Island? Especially when her boss keeps pushing her to bring in more clients. The home felt extremely unrealistic. She never seems to have money issues, but she's definitly not taking money from her parents. If Graham were trying to make her struggle seem realistic, perhaps she should have rethought this location.

Ann's sister has a chip on her shoulder the size of a VW. For most of the film, we're not sure if it's because she has no job, no life, no prospects and is a resentful adult, living with her parents in the room she grew up in, playing second to Ann, the parent's favorite. Clio is always angry, and we don't know why until near the end of the film. It's not as if there are any breadcrumbs to follow, either. This is a family filled with resentment. So, really, it's not surprising that Ann finds solace and acceptance in her long-time friends. And these people are very interested in trying to find her a better relationship with an available man.

So she gets introduced to 'hunky architect' Steve (John Brotherton), who happens to be remodeling her friend Max's new restaurant venture. They hit it off, until they hit the inevitable snag: Steve's really obnoxious, demanding, manipulative 7-year-old daughter, Lily (Ella Grace Helton), who seems to be channeling his ex-wife. Are 7-year-old's still so intent on breaking up their dad's relationships these days? I almost feel like they have their own interests, their own friends and especially, their own Ipads to distract them from whatever their parents are involved in. That part of the storyline felt reminiscent of something from the 1980's, not 2024.

Many of the film's other details are realistic. Life is messy, someone is always being blamed for something, there's always some sort of competition going on between siblings. But overall, it felt more like this is a film about one woman's search for self-actualization, and we're going on the journey with her. There were no highs, there were no lows and it simply felt flat, except for the joy she finds among her friends, her 'chosen family'. We're not especially happy or sad for anyone in the film. In addition to leaving me feeling meh, story-wise, it also was lacking background music. When used in films, you don't always notice that it is present, but you definitely notice when it is absent. There may have been budget issues, there may have been directorial or editing choices. But either way, it was very vanilla.

"Chosen Family," written and directed by Heather Graham, felt to me like a very personal story that took courage to reveal & tell. But that risk of vulnerability she undertakes makes it very relatable. I was rooting for Anne (Heather's character) all the way.

Moments of self-baring, discomfort, heartbreak and even dread are handled with directness. However, the light comedic tone underpinning Anne's experiences helps keep her -- and our -- head above water. More than that, it leads to self-empowerment as well as a realization of what exactly the word "family" -- or what constitutes a healthy support structure in one's life -- should mean.

I was both moved and entertained by Heather Graham's story & film.