Things happen, all of which have been seen before and scripted better.
It Runs in the Family (2003)
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Reviews Counted:96
Fresh:27
Rotten:69
Average Rating:4.5/10
Consensus: Despite its gimmick casting, the movie ultimately goes nowhere.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for drug content, sexual material and language
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Apr 25, 2003 Wide
Box Office: $7,375,836
Synopsis: Some families can survive everything. Even each other. The Grombergs are a highly successful family – except when it comes to communicating with each other. Alex Gromberg (Michael Douglas) is... Some families can survive everything. Even each other. The Grombergs are a highly successful family – except when it comes to communicating with each other. Alex Gromberg (Michael Douglas) is a man caught in the middle. Navigating the tricky, ever-changing roles of father, son, and husband, he’s trying to avoid the mistakes his father made while coming to terms with the ones he’s already passed on to his own sons. Alex’s wife, Rebecca (Bernadette Peters), is a psychologist trying to balance a professional life with her marriage and raising her kids. Mitchell Gromberg (Kirk Douglas), the patriarch and a retired partner of one of New York’s leading law firms, is having difficulty coming to grips with his mortality. Evelyn (Diana Douglas) is his devoted wife and has been his emotional rock throughout their marriage – and the peacemaker between him and Alex. Asher Gromberg (Cameron Douglas), Alex’s eldest son, is a rebellious college student trying to cope with life, love, and sex in a confused society. And Eli (Rory Culkin), Alex’s 11-year old, is perhaps the "oldest" and most levelheaded of all the Gromberg men. Three generations of an American family, they all live separate lives, each in their own dysfunctional way. But every once in awhile, there comes a time to come together – to celebrate, to laugh, to fight, to cry, and to care for each other. Onscreen together for the first time in their careers, Academy Award-winners Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas join real-life relations Cameron Douglas and Diana Douglas, along with Bernadette Peters and Rory Culkin, to tell a story about the loving, frustrating, and ultimately inescapable bonds of family. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Buena Vista International present Michael Douglas and Kirk Douglas in It Runs in the Family, a Furthur Films production of a Fred Schepisi film. Directed by Schepisi and written by Jesse Wigutow, the film also stars Rory Culkin, Cameron Douglas, Diana Douglas, Michelle Monaghan, and Bernadette Peters. Produced by Michael Douglas, It Runs in the Family was executive produced by Schepisi and Kerry Orent, with Marcy Drogin as co-producer and Joel Douglas as associate producer. The production team includes director of photography Ian Baker, production designer Patrizia Von Brandenstein, editor Kate Williams, costume designer Ellen Mirojnick, composer Paul Grabowsky, and music supervisor Susan Jacobs. [More]
Starring: Michael Douglas, Rory Culkin, Diana Douglas, Bernadette Peters
Starring: Michael Douglas, Rory Culkin, Diana Douglas, Bernadette Peters, Kirk Douglas, Cameron Douglas, Michelle Monaghan
Director: Fred Schepisi
Director: Fred Schepisi
Screenwriter: Jesse Wigutow
Producer: Michael Keaton, Michael Douglas
Composer: Paul Grabowsky
Studio: MGM/UA
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Reviews for It Runs in the Family
Director Fred Schepisi's Last Order is exactly the kind of rueful, bittersweet comedy-drama this film appears intended to be, but the mawkish sitcom schtick about loved ones driving each other crazy defeats him.
Acting together for the first time, Kirk and Michael Douglas have some powerful scenes together, which only makes you wish the entire project had tilted more towards Eugene O'Neill than Neil Simon.
Achingly long and pointless, Runs is a movie about family that's dishonest in its presentation of every relationship.
A well-cooked soup of family cliches, another ancestor of TV's The Goldbergs and Neil Simon, etc. Thankfully, it is not another version of The Jazz Singer.
Edgier and a lot less sappy than you'd expect, but there are way too many complications in the mix.
Despite rich acting and expert direction, the two grids don't snap neatly together.
Three generations of the Kirk Douglas family strain against mawkish material about a dysfunctional family that ties up all its loose ends in 109 cringe-worthy minutes.
This sort of message can become unbearably sappy. But It Runs in the Family manages to sidestep the potential overload of cheap sentimentality.
It Runs in the Family is the best look at aging and family dynamics since On Golden Pond and benefits from the same magical formula.
It is impossible to know where the fiction leaves off and real life begins in [the Douglas'] tough-love exchanges, but the result is often electric, especially when the movie is in its darkest places emotionally.
Jesse Wigutow has written a tale of people we don’t really care about and thus the bickering between and within the three generations of the Gromberg family doesn’t mean all that much.
As conveyances go, this is no vehicle -- it's a train. Unfortunately, the train keeps hopping the tracks.
Sometimes shrill, often dull, it has nowhere in particular to go, and it takes far too long not getting there.
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