"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.
