Love The Coopers

When it comes to The Coopers, their lives are all highly dysfunctional. Charlotte (Diane Keaton) and Sam (John Goodman) are the matriarch and patriarch of the family. From the outside, everything looks perfect and like the spark of their love has lasted all of these years. From the inside though, they are harboring a secret. They are splitting up and Sam is moving out. They have agreed to wait to tell their kids until after the holidays, an agreement it seems that Sam is reneging on.

Charlotte’s sister Emma (Marisa Tomei) is the direct opposite of her. She is unmarried, childless and a wallflower.  She is constantly envious of Charlotte and tries to one-up her. Now that it’s the holidays and a time for gifts, with no money Emma tries to steal a broach and gets caught. She ends up in the back of a squad car bound for the police station on Christmas Eve.

Charlotte and Emma are always at odds over their father’s attention. Bucky (Alan Arkin) is a simple old man who enjoys going to the same diner every day and being waited on the kindest waitress named Ruby (Amanda Seyfried) whom he is friends with. Unfortunately, Ruby has sadly not had an easy life and she is quitting the diner that very Christmas Eve to move to a small, safe town where she hopes for a new start. This upsets Frank who thinks Ruby is just using this as a way to avoid her struggles.

Charlotte’s children Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) and Hank (Ed Helms) have their own issues, too. Hank lost his job taking portraits at Sears and has two kids he promised to provide bikes this year as presents. Eleanor is a playwright who hasn’t had much success beyond her first hit play at age nineteen. Hank is always fighting with his ex wife Angie (Alex Borstein) and it is taking its toll on the kids. Eleanor comes to visit her family for the holidays and parks herself at the airport bar because she wants to avoid going home for as long as possible. It’s there she meets a soldier named Joe (Jake Lacy) and the two hit it off. Eleanor gets the idea that she should bring him home because that will appease her parents and make her seem less like a failure. But what starts as a farce may end up actually connecting the two.

While Love The Coopers is supposed to be a film about coming together, it’s the lack of chemistry that really keeps the togetherness from feeling and fitting properly. Everyone seems to be standing out as one, rather than a cohesive family.  June Squibb, as Aunt Fishy, and Alan Arkin bring some heartwarming and humorous moments to the movie, but beyond that there is no “fun” in this dysfunction.  The holiday spirit misses the mark and it ends up seeming like this is just another holiday movie to pack away with the tree and trimmings.

Love The Coopers tries to make merry, but ends up feeling more like the relative you try your best to avoid at family functions.