There are many ways to define the shrieking awfulness of The Family Stone, from the general lack of wit to the cheap exploitation of cancer to its casual cruelty.
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12/15/05
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The Family Stone (2005)
52
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:147
Fresh:77
Rotten:70
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: This family holiday dramedy features fine performances but awkward shifts of tone.
Theatrical Release:Dec 16, 2005 Wide
Box Office: $59,856,288
Synopsis: Destined to be a Christmas classic, Thomas Bezucha's dazzling dramedy, THE FAMILY STONE, manages to be both warmhearted and sentimental while possessing a razor-sharp hilarious mean streak. The... [More]
Starring: Claire Danes, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Sarah Jessica Parker
Director: Thomas Bezucha
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Reviews for The Family Stone
Top CriticThe Family Stone introduces a fun and agreeable bunch of people to hang around with, even if they never say or do anything worth remembering.
12/15/05
The Family Stone shows us the world through several different sets of eyes, and, by the end, we see exactly what they see.
12/15/05
As a comedy, The Family Stone is more easy listening than rock-and-roll, but some of the performances (notably from McAdams and Nelson) are comfortable and affecting.
12/15/05
Top CriticWith intelligence and unforced spirit to spare, The Family Stone is that rare widely commercial motion picture worth embracing.
12/15/05
It tries way too hard to give you the sense of familiarity - - like, you already know these people, they're your family, so why develop the characters? Except we don't, and they aren't.
12/15/05
Hits every conceivable chord, no matter how much of a stretch.
12/15/05
The Family Stone spends too much time on unconvincing romantic-comedy contrivances to be consistently engaging.
12/15/05
[H]omey and warm and comfortable and family style and like a big plate of hot-from-the-oven Christmas cookies spiked with walnuts to cut the sweetness.
12/15/05
Thomas Bezucha weaves a cozy blanket of loving dysfunction and wraps it around a delightfully funny cast.
12/15/05
The Family Stone sorts out its characters admirably, depends on typecasting to help establish its characters more quickly, and finds a winding path between happy and sad secrets.
12/15/05
Top CriticThe Family Stone aims to please, and lands precisely on so-so.
12/15/05
Almost everything about The Family Stone is so schematic and prefabricated that it should come with its own easy-to-follow blueprint.
12/15/05
Top CriticA potentially interesting tale flailing haplessly in the quicksand of holiday-movie formula, this domestic dramedy from writer-director Thomas Bezucha is most potently read in reverse of its intentions.
12/15/05
What's striking and, to my bloodshot eye, welcome about this year's edition, The Family Stone, is the rather chic urbanity with which writer-director Thomas Bezucha serves up the old genre standby.
12/15/05
Top CriticThe plot is motored more by convenience than credible character behavior and for much of the time, the cockles of our hearts remain unwarmed.
12/15/05
Top CriticIf this movie doesn't put you in the Christmas spirit, you're either dead...or Jewish.
12/15/05
Yet another of those dysfunctional-family-at-the-holidays movies that aim to elicit smiles of recognition but are more likely to make you wince in pain.
12/15/05
Busts your holiday sweets-stuffed gut with farcical laughter.
12/15/05
a rare family comedy for grown-ups that's worth your time.
12/15/05
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