In my home, "the most fantastic time of the yr" can't begin till Diane Keaton throws a cozy gown and scarf over her crisp, white button-down and calls for to know who completed the pot of coffee.
I am referring, after all, to the 2005 gem that is the Family Stone, written and directed by Thomas Bezucha, a home-for-the-holidays ensemble dramedy movie that is streaming free on Peacock this 12 months.
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The festive Sarah Jessica Parker car acquired blended reviews when it premiered. Where audiences (ahem, me) saw an elegant seesaw of comedic hijinks and tearjerking poignancy, critics noticed tonal whiplash. Whereas audiences (also me) enjoyed the highs and lows of the movie's quirky love triangle -- nay, rhombus -- critics stated, "Um, what?"
But over 16 Christmas seasons, the comfy-coziest of vacation films has attracted somewhat of a cult following. A criminally small one, in my estimation, because it is the proper Christmas movie. Here is why.
First, the setting: The Household Stone almost fully takes place in the sprawling and charmingly cluttered New England dwelling of empty nesters Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson). It's Christmas, and their five adult children are returning dwelling for the holidays. There will be take-out pizza. There'll be a recreation of charades. There'll be slipper socks. If this movie has supplied me with something, it's the hope to someday procure 5 adult youngsters of my own in order that they too might return residence for the vacations and re-create the utter warmth and cheer this movie radiates.
Oldest son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) is bringing house his accomplice, Meredith (Parker), to fulfill the family for the first time, and, as Sybil correctly intuits, to ask for his grandmother's heirloom wedding ring so he can propose. The wonderfully messy, raucous, bohemian Stone household, which incorporates very-pregnant Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser), enjoyable-loving pothead Ben (Luke Wilson in a scarf), NPR tote bag-toting Amy (Rachel McAdams), and the candy (and deaf) Thad (Tyrone Giordano) take an immediate disliking to Meredith. You see, Meredith's chignons are supertight. She wears excessive heels in the house. She participates in capitalism. She's a "spoiled, loopy, racist, bigot bitch from Bedford" (her words). Hilarity and havoc ensue.
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That synopsis does not actually do the film justice though, as a result of it is a film whose charms transcend plot. The true Christmas miracle right here is in the film's aesthetic, and you are mendacity to yourself if you happen to assume aesthetics aren't the most crucial element of any holiday movie. The Stone's house is hygge on steroids: So many window treatments and pillows! So many patterned wallpapers! Every bookshelf, drawer and cabinet is totally overflowing with the detritus of household life. It is essentially the most lived-in film house I've ever seen. And of course there's a blanket of snow across the entrance yard during the movie.
Then there's the dysfunctional household piece, a prerequisite of vacation fare. The Stone family might bear the designation at first glance, but when you really dig in to the movie -- should you watch it every year for a decade and a half -- you may find they're actually quite purposeful. And I believe this will get to why The Family Stone is such a perfect annual rewatch.
Keaton's aging matriarch is as sharp-tongued as she is affectionate. She first greets Ben with a warm hug and a warning that "Christmas isn't going to be 'clothes optionally available' this yr." She teases Amy about the guy who "popped your cherry." When Everett lastly asks for the ring, she delivers an iconic Keatonian "Tough shit!" She and Kelly's marriage can solely be described as aspirational. And the playful ribbing and head swatting and eye-rolling among the siblings is one thing I want in on. It's the family dynamic equal of a bowl of buttery mashed potatoes.
The opposite secret ingredient is the best way the whole movie pivots on a single line delivered by Wilson on a snowy football bleacher. You suppose it may be one film, however then it bait-and-switches into a fair higher one. The line -- you will know it whenever you hear it -- heightens the film to an entire different stage, bringing new layers to why the Stone family is basically so crucial of Meredith.
I saw The Family Stone for the first time in a packed film theater in 2005. It was so packed, Clean廠勞力士迪通拿 in reality, that I had to take a seat in the dreaded front row, and i left with a crick in my neck and a warmth in my heart. On each annual rewatch since, I find new particulars I hadn't seen earlier than. The movie is my yuletide touchstone in an more and more chaotic world. For 103 minutes every December, I get to spend time with a bustling, tight-knit, hug-joyful household whose love for one another is so robust it creates the circumstances for a dozen comedic fish-out-of-water set pieces.
Every year I feel "Perhaps the Stones can be nice to Meredith this time." Every year the Christmas Eve dinner scene becomes even more excruciating than the last. And yearly I keep in mind that packed theater, and that i purse my lips in wistful resignation that they simply do not make them like this anymore.