The Family Stone

You’re in love and your significant other wants to bring you home to meet the family at the holidays. Are you happy and looking forward to meeting “the posse” or are you dreading it like a police interrogation where “you just know” everything you say can and will be used against you?” Okay, did I mention it’s the holidays too and you “as the child” are also going to have to assimilate whatever joy or personal “luggage” which surfaces every time the holidays rolls around and you and your siblings get together?”

The first time I saw The Family Stone I laughed, I cried, and upon examining some of the characters in this movie - I said ah, yes, I have felt that way too.

Quotes

Ben Stone (to Meredith): Don’t dilly-dally there, pretty lady. We are all gonna be down here talking about you.

Meredith Morton (to her boyfriend’s sister): I don’t care whether you like me or not!
Amy Stone (to her brother’s girlfriend Meredith): Of course you do.

Meredith Morton: What’s so great about you guys?
Sybil Stone: Uh, nothing…it’s just that we’re all that we’ve got.

Kelly Stone (to the entire Stone Family): We will try to welcome her back in, like a “civilized” family might.

Meredith Morton (to the entire Stone Family): Isn’t there anyone that loves me?

Plot Summary

Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Evertt Stone (Dermot Mulroney) are, with some slight exceptions, similar in many ways – both are business people, traditional, conservative, perfectionists, and they are dating. It seems like a perfect match until Evertt decides to take Meredith home for the holidays to meet his liberal, out-going, and eccentric family. Once there, he plans to ask his mother for his grandmother’s antique ring so that he can ask Meredith to marry him.

The Stone parents Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) and Sybil (Diane Keaton) are college educated products of the 1960s, who raised their children in an artsy and liberal atmosphere. Diane Keaton, as the matriarch, is brilliant in this role – think a combination of hippie, mother earth, artsy, feminist, and your favorite progressive college professor and you have an idea of what her personality is like. She is opinionated, blunt, embarrasses her children at times, and under the surface you know, you REALLY know, she loves her family so deeply it hurts. Sarah Jessica Parker, as the girlfriend of the family prince and overachiever, is brilliant too. Outwardly she appears to be really put together, but inwardly, placed in this particular situation, we know that is a façade. She clears her throat and talks too much because she is nervous to meet Evertt’s family and she is enough of a “people reader” to know how they REALLY feel about her. There are traits to like and dislike in both of these women, but we know that given time – these two women, opposites in many ways, would be good for each other if the reason they had come together in the first place was different.

Raised in the same home by the same parents, the Stone children, like most siblings, have different personalities and one by one the five of them come back home to spend the holidays with their parents. Thad Stone (Tyrone Girodano), the Stone’s deaf and gay son arrives first with his African American partner Patrick Thomas (Brian J. White), Amy Stone (Rachel McAdams) – a schoolteacher and the baby of family who is an equal combination of disorganization and acerbic wit which conceals or protects a kind heart – she is the only one in the family to have met Meredith and gives a “humorously” negative report to the rest of her family concerning her brother’s choice of girlfriend, next to arrive is the older pregnant sister Susannah Stone Trousdale (Elizabeth Reaser) with her daughter Elizabeth (Savannah Stehlin) in tow (her husband is working and will come for Christmas, but we only get to see him for a few minutes later on in the movie), Evertt and Meredith arrive next and from the get go we see that she is a “fish out of water” with this liberal group, and last of the children to arrive is laid back Ben Stone (Luke Wilson), a documentary filmmaker, who is a free spirit, funny, and what could be referred to as a “stoner.”

It is apparent from the beginning that Meredith is overwhelmed and trying way too hard to be liked by the Stone family and while they treat her nicely (with the exception of Amy who is always throwing zingers her way) on the surface none of the family can see Meredith and Everett as a couple. Meredith awkwardly tried to fit into the family mix, but comes to feel that none of them, with the exception of Ben, like her. Eventually Meredith calls her sister Julie Morton (Claire Danes) for moral support and in another plot twist Julie arrives on a bus and immediately hits it off with the entire family. I’m going to stop there as I don’t want to reveal any more of the plot.

I do not know how they did it, but this movie is funny and sad and I promise you one or several of these characters will strike a cord with you and tug at your heart strings.

The title, The Family Stone is something to reflect on too – is it the heirloom ring, a play on the Stone family name, or could it refer to the “rock of the family,” the person who keeps the Stone family connected to each other and coming home year after year to spend the holidays together?

Did I mention there is a secret which will change the very fabric of this family? Can they survive it!

Life Lessons

This is a movie about family and how the family dynamic works when someone is introduced as a potential new member to the pack.

You could be the leader, the responsible one, the slack-off, the risk taker, the moocher, the caregiver, the peacemaker, the stoner, the baby, the person no one takes seriously, the overachiever, the hero, the kind one, the mean one, the black sheep etc, but each person has a role in a family and brings their own distinct personality to the mix. Families who have been operating as a unit for awhile get this and get each other.

The family “the new person is being introduced to” thinks they and their way of doing things are normal – even though normal can be a relative term when you are dealing with families. Still – they get and understand each other -- add someone new, and the family dynamic changes.

Meeting your significant other’s family can be daunting, after all they all know each other. Maybe you are one of those amazing souls that an encounter like this would not bother – you look forward to it with joy, but most people, if they were honest, would say to their best friend before going… I hope they like me.

This exchange between Evertt’s sister and his girlfriend is brilliant:

“Meredith Morton: (to her boyfriend’s sister) I don’t care whether you like me or not!
Amy Stone: (to her brother’s girlfriend Meredith) Of course you do.”

Yes of course Meredith does care what they think – she is human and we all want our beloved’s family to like us.

Here is something “a sage woman of age” said at a bridal shower many years ago…..

“When you become engaged to someone, take a good look at their family, because the day you marry your beloved – you marry them too.”

Young love might not want to believe that, but old love will tell you it’s absolutely true.

The Family Stone Movie Cast:

· Claire Danes as Julie Morton
· Diane Keaton as Sybil Stone
· Rachel McAdams as Amy Stone
· Dermot Mulroney as Everett Stone
· Craig T. Nelson as Kelly Stone
· Sarah Jessica Parker as Meredith Morton
· Luke Wilson as Ben Stone
· Tyrone Giordano as Thad Stone
· Brian J. White as Patrick Thomas
· Elizabeth Reaser as Susannah Stone Trousdale
· Paul Schneider as Brad Stevenson
· Savannah Stehlin as Elizabeth Trousdale
· Jamie Kaler as John Trousdale
· Robert Dioguardi as David Silver
· Carol Locatell as Jeweler
· Ginna Carter as Jittery Cashier
· Gus Buktenica as Bartender
· Michael Pemberton as Bus Driver One
· Ron Wall as Bus Driver Two
· Christopher Parker as Inn Receptionist