Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Jake Johnson | ... | Tim | |
Rosemarie DeWitt | ... | Lee | |
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Jude Swanberg | ... | Jude |
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Alicia Van Couvering | ... | Cashier |
Timothy Simons | ... | Yoga Couple | |
Jenny Slate | ... | Yoga Couple | |
Jeff Baena | ... | BB Gun Friend | |
Mike Birbiglia | ... | Phil | |
Steve Berg | ... | Paul | |
Kent Osborne | ... | Adam | |
Sam Rockwell | ... | Ray | |
Chris Messina | ... | Tango | |
Anna Kendrick | ... | Alicia | |
Brie Larson | ... | Max | |
Judith Light | ... | Grandma |
Married couple Lee and Tim, a part-time yoga instructor and a public school physical education teacher respectively, jump at the opportunity to sit at the secluded Los Angeles Hills house of an actress acquaintance for two weeks as a mini-vacation for them and their three-year-old son, Jude. The house sit starts with an unusual event: Tim finds on the property in the wooded hills just beyond the swimming pool a gun and a bone. He believes the bone could be a human one, and that there could be a murdered dead body buried in the hills in the vicinity of where he found these items. Tim telephones the police, who tell him they can do nothing unless an actual body is found. As such, Lee convinces Tim to drop the subject. On their first weekend at the house, Lee decides to leave Tim on his own for the weekend to complete their income tax return, which he has long put off, while she and Jude go to visit among others her mother and stepfather, and her sister Squiggy and her family, neither ... Written by Huggo
This is a movie about nothing. That's fine for a half-hour episode of Seinfeld, because it's amusing and entertaining. This movie is neither. It's humorless, tedious and somewhat painful to watch.
I like slice-of life movies. I don't need action. I don't need anything to really happen as long as I experience something I normally wouldn't experience in everyday life. This movie is anyone's very ordinary everyday life with some amount of coincidence and absurdity added. Rather than creating interest, though, these devices only prevent anything genuine from emerging.
Only one of the two main characters is believable, and both lack color and depth. That's a serious flaw in a movie where almost nothing happens. A transformation of sorts does take place, but it feels contrived. The events leading up to the transformation don't in any way suggest that it should occur, or why.
I'm giving the movie 4 out of 10 because someone might get something from it, and because there are a few brief moments that I liked. Also, the acting is at least adequate.The movie is inferior, but not horrible. Observing everyday life on a long walk would be a better way to spend 90 minutes, though.