The Oranges (2012)
Average Rating: 4.9/10
Reviews Counted: 69
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 47
Despite the efforts of its accomplished cast, The Oranges suffers from a mediocre script that fails to deliver well-rounded characters, dramatic tension, or sufficient laughs.
Average Rating: 5.3/10
Critic Reviews: 24
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 17
Despite the efforts of its accomplished cast, The Oranges suffers from a mediocre script that fails to deliver well-rounded characters, dramatic tension, or sufficient laughs.
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Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 3,471
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Movie Info
David and Paige Walling (Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener) and Terry and Cathy Ostroff (Oliver Platt, Allison Janney) are best friends and neighbors living on Orange Drive in suburban New Jersey. Their comfortable existence goes awry when prodigal daughter Nina Ostroff (Leighton Meester), newly broken up with her fiancé Ethan (Sam Rosen), returns home for Thanksgiving after a five-year absence. Rather than developing an interest in the successful son of her neighbors, Toby Walling (Adam Brody),
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Cast
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Hugh Laurie
David, David Walling -
Leighton Meester
Nina, Nina Ostroff -
Catherine Keener
Paige, Paige Walling -
Oliver Platt
Terry, Terry Ostroff -
Allison Janney
Carol Ostroff, Cathy -
Alia Shawkat
Vanessa, Vanessa Wallin... -
Adam Brody
Toby, Toby Walling -
Sam Rosen
Ethan -
Aya Cash
Maya -
Lee Hoon
Henry Chart -
Tim Guinee
Roger
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The Oranges Trailer & Photos
All Critics (69) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (47)
The intervention of Tony Soprano, who lives not far away, is urgently called for.
Top CriticThe Oranges does not taste freshly squeezed.
The leafy green trees evident everywhere in what purports to be New Jersey Christmas scenes aren't the only thing that feels off in the predictable domestic bedroom comedy The Oranges.
You want something that plays a little sharper, and cuts a little deeper. You want something that demands more of its performers, and delivers more to its audience.
You know the movie has an insurmountable problem when the two adulterers, who profess to be madly in love, don't even seem like they want to be in the same room.
The Oranges displays an air of efficient economy. Nothing is messy, no beat too long, the actors hit their marks.
The acting almost varnishes the fractured surface, enabling the audience to accept the film as a deeply felt, feelgood family comedy.
The dialogue's much saltier and sharper than you expect from a drama that's essentially playing it safe.
There's plenty of potential for jagged black humour in this suburban comedy-drama, but the filmmakers never take a single risk.
The movie's horribly jaunty soundtrack is a problem. Ditto the blah camera-work. But mostly it's the script, which turns out to be spineless.
It's all mildly amusing, if fairly obvious, stuff and it's impeccably played by the superb cast. But you can't help feeling that they all deserve something rather more worthy of their talents.
How much you enjoy this comedy will depend upon how gross you consider the idea of a married 50-year-old father having an affair with his best friend's 24-year-old daughter.
A tricky social conundrum is boiled down, lightly prodded and then forgotten by the roadside. Shame.
Disappoints with its gooey liberalism and its failure to find a convincing dramatic register for the central relationship.
I'm not sure a better cast has ever gone more ickily astray than in this most misbegotten of dramedies.
It's no classic but diverting enough. At the very least it will most likely put your family Christmas feuds into perspective.
Marital crisis in the New Jersey suburbs feels like yesterday's soggy granola in this impressively witless clone of American Beauty.
Sporadic in its own sparkle, middling in its wit, the film will be required viewing mainly for Hugh Laurie phenomenologists ...
Engaging dysfunctional family comedy-drama with terrific performances from a superb ensemble cast, though it's not quite as edgy as it should have been.
An honest look into stale relationships and an ultimately optimistic view of how things can change even if they initially appear slightly ikky.
Beautifully acted, lovingly shot and something of a pre-Christmas treat to enjoy, one segment at a time.
With Laurie and Meester on credible form, The Oranges remains a juicy comic odyssey, pithy to its core.
An enjoyable but largely forgettable comedy drama.
It's overfamiliar stuff, played out in a sitcom-style, and despite some distinguished acting, The Oranges has limited appeal, unless you are Woody Allen.
An off-kilter script and winning turns from Laurie, Janney and Meester help disguise how much the film is hedging its bets, flirting with a darkness it never quite dares to embrace.
Audience Reviews for The Oranges
Super Reviewer
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- Nina Ostroff: Can't we just be normal?
- Terry Ostroff: What's normal?
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- Terry Ostroff: Okay I hurt my ankle.
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Latest News on The Oranges
October 4, 2012:
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Foreign Titles
- Die Tochter meines besten Freundes (DE)
- La hija de mi mejor amigo (ES)
