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So-so
Avg. Critic Score: 56 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
14 Iffy for 14+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 75
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    As stuffed with beguiling performances - some of them unexpectedly good - as its script is overstuffed. And though even the beguiled may feel manipulated the next morning (or when hitting the exits), the players put it over by a nose. Happy holidays. Read full review

  • 75
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Keaton, a sorceress at blending humor and heartbreak, honors the film with a grace that makes it stick in the memory. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    Silly at times, leaning toward the screwball tradition of everyone racing around the house at the same time in a panic fueled by serial misunderstandings. There is also a thoughtful side. Read full review

  • 75
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    Parker has a great time being the antiCarrie Bradshaw while Keaton-as-matriarch is a particular joy -- funny, beautiful, elegant, touching, and at ease with a familiar, get-out-your-hankies holiday subplot. Read full review

  • 70
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    A film that's at times as ragged and shaggy as its family unit. But as written and directed by Thomas Bezucha, its offbeat mixture of highly choreographed comic crises and the occasional bite of reality make for an unexpectedly enticing blend. Read full review

  • 50
    The Hollywood Reporter | Sheri Linden

    Spends too much time on unconvincing romantic-comedy contrivances to be consistently engaging. Throughout the uneven film and its mixed bag of performances, the compelling point of focus is Diane Keaton's smart, funny, spot-on natural portrait of the formidable Stone matriarch. Read full review

  • 50
    Variety | Justin Chang

    Keaton embodies the formidable Stone matriarch with an offhand sense of humor that cuts like a knife. Read full review

  • 50
    The New York Times | Manohla Dargis

    The women make The Family Stone, especially Ms. Parker, whose nimble performance is reason alone to see the film: not since Philippe Petit has anyone walked a tightrope with such finesse - and in high heels, no less. Read full review

  • 30
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    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, but it's writer-director Thomas Bezucha's casting that really goes awry. Read full review

  • 25
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    Bezucha made something perverse, a feel-bad holiday film about a repellent family, with a milquetoast dad and a smug, devious harpy of a mom. Read full review

View more reviews for The Family Stone on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 14+ Bittersweet story won't appeal to younger teens.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this romantic comedy focuses on family tensions emerging when grown children come home for the Christmas holidays. Characters argue and pout; brothers fight, causing black eyes and cut cheeks. Characters drink at a bar, to the point that one passes out and doesn't remember how she ends up in her fiancé's brother's bed. One character is accused of racism, homophobia, and general "uptightness." While it's mainly comedic, the movie also includes a plot thread where a character is dying of cancer (brief glimpse of her mastectomy scar).
  • Families can talk about the family relationships. How do the kids' behaviors resemble their parents'? How do the Stones come to see their presumed open-mindedness as insular and judgmental? How might Meredith's transformation from tense to sociable (here pushed along by a night of drinking), be achieved in a less stereotypical way?
The good stuff
  • message true3 Positive messages: Holidays are stressful, but family members really love each other.
What to watch for
  • violence false0 Violence: Some fighting between brothers, treated as comedy and leaving black eyes and cut faces.
  • sex false3 Sex: Sexual activity hinted at (woman wakes up in wrong brother's bed); gay couple kisses chastely; parents kiss and snuggle in bed, revealing very briefly the mother's mastectomy scar.
  • language false3 Language: Minor language ("damn," "s--t").
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Brief shot of Santa/Norelco ad on TV; beer labels visible in bar; an NPR logo marks a character's "liberal" leanings.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Drinking in bar, to point of passing out and forgetting the evening; references to pot-smoking.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

The Family Stone Movie Ratings + Reviews

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