mavvymoo I can't believe the hate or just non-watching of this gem! From the great actors to the funniness, it should be on everyone's holiday watch list!

Robert D. Ruplenas This effort from director Jodie Foster is more disastrous than the family gathering it portrays. The premise - a Thanksgiving get together of a family which is 'dysfunctional' in all the clichéd Hollywood ways - holds ample opportunity for natural comedy, but in this movie every ounce of humor is contrived and forced. And half of it misses the mark because the characters involved are either so pitiful or so unpleasant that we feel no desire to laugh (laughter in the showing my wife and I saw was decidedly spare).The movie goes on and on. My wife caught a much-needed nap in the middle; I thought my watch had broken. "Lawrence of Arabia", at four hours, passes faster than this dog at two.Anne Bancroft and Charles Durning, Bancroft especially, put in heroic efforts and come closest to rising above the material (but not quite).If you're looking for a funny movie about family get togethers, rent National Lampoon's "Christmas Vacation". Yes, the humor in that movie is contrived, but it never pretends to be anything else, unlike Foster's effort which aspires toward 'realistic' humor and ends up being more contrived than the Griswold family.An unquestioned flop.

SnoopyStyle Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) loses her art restorer job due to budget cuts. Her 16 year old daughter Kitt (Claire Danes) shocks her with her intention to lose her virginity. Then she has to go back home to her parents (Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning) for Thanksgiving. Her sister Joanne (Cynthia Stevenson) and brother-in-law Walter Wedman (Steve Guttenberg) are uptight conservatives. Her irreverent gay brother Tommy (Robert Downey Jr.) shows up with Leo Fish (Dylan McDermott). Aunt Glady (Geraldine Chaplin) is an eccentric plant lady. Sad sack Russell Terziak (David Strathairn) is infatuated with Claudia.It's Holly Hunter suffering under various family members. I wish Claire Danes could stay in the heart of the movie. Downey tries to steal the movie with his antics. Claudia embodies how I feel about this movie. I love the people here but some of them annoy me. I watch this with detached bemusement. The wacky energy from Downey energizes a rather simple family dysfunction chaos. Director Jodie Foster maintains control of the manic wackiness but she isn't able to maximize the comedy.

moviedude1 Holly Hunter stars as a woman who finds out she's not quite making it just before she heads home to Baltimore for Thanksgiving, where an overbearing mother, slightly whacked-out father are waiting for their children to return home to the nest, including her homosexual brother who's very well known for his antics and escapades.I'm not sure where to begin, except that the genres for this film are seriously backwards. Don't get me wrong...I like the movie, but I found more drama than comedy in it. And there's that old saying about, "Look in the dictionary under (insert word here) and you'll find my family picture as the illustration," and dysfunctional is DEFINITELY Hunter's family in this case.It's not stupid comedy, and it's not a stupid movie, but it's not really that funny, either.3 out of 10 stars.