Love the Coopers (2015)

Waste of time

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

i must have seen a different film!!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Incredibly predictable plot. I could have written a better version of this staple plot device. Yes, everyone's family has disagreements that can intrude on holiday celebrations. Please, at least make the cast small enough that you can have some character development. A great bunch of actors wasted.

A festive movie about family, about values, about love and everything else. With a little twist at the end if you want to call it that. Other than that it is pretty much by the numbers (predictable that is). But it's a fun movie to watch and it's lovely to see another story about family interactions.If you like that kind of stuff that is. But it's light (drama included of course) and it's fun overall. The acting talent at hand is amazing and it's clear they're having a blast. I guess watching it around Christmas time makes the most sense, but you could also watch it anytime else and still have that good feeling

Why does a holiday movie have to be so complex that you have to jot down notes to get a better understanding of what's being thrown at us? The worst case is that even after all that note taking there's not a single element that's even the most noteworthy. That's what I felt after watching "Love the Coopers", a film that delves into the lives of a dysfunctional family during the holiday season, but we end up lost in the shuffle of characters without proper introduction and the details about them are virtually non-existent. Director Jessie Nelson and screenwriter Steven Rogers plaster on underfed events juxtaposed with tiring levels of slapstick. However as the film unfolds we learn less about the characters and the film just settles on making them very unlikable.It's Christmastime at the Cooper clan and the parents San and Charlotte (John Goodman and Diane Keaton) are facing marital problems after 40 years of marriage. To contribute to their marital problems they still manage to bring up the subject of an incident that happened 30 years ago. Daughter Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) refuses to go home for the holidays and befriends an army soldier named Joe (Jake Lacey), but she uses him as a scapegoat to get her mother off her back. Son Hank (Ed Helms) has problems in his hand as he's going through a nasty divorce while also facing unemployment while he reminisces about his days working at a department store. Charlotte's much younger sister, Emma (Marisa Tomei) has been arrested on account of kleptomania while becoming very chatty with a cop (Anthony Mackie). Finally grandfather Bucky (Alan Arkin) is quite passionate with a diner waitress Ruby (Amanda Seyfried) and is heartbroken that she's quitting her job in search for other endevours.With an ensemble cast, we were hoping to get a decent introduction with the characters, but in the end, we never really know the characters and all the dramatic tensions just envelop without even a warning from its audience. It seems that each family member is used as a unintentional plot twist to keep us guessing which is all right for a mystery film, but not a film intended as a holiday themed film. For the next 100 minutes of this movie, we are forced to guess who's who and this warm, friendly holiday film is anything but warm or friendly. Even the script has us left in limbo like they describe Ruby as a Cooper, but she's a character outside the family. Much the same goes to Aunt Fishy (June Squibb) and the family dog Rags (Steve Martin) who's only purpose in this movie is to look cute and used as a decoy for an occasional fart joke to those who love potty humour."Love the Coopers" isn't hard to decipher, but the script is very opaque from the lacking character development to the forceful efforts in adding some fantasy towards the story as each character reflects upon their past triumphs and failures. Everything about this film feels randomized from unconventional characters getting more screen time to more prominent ones being shut out like an afterthought and to comic timing virtually non-existent. Sure Nelson provides the angst and uncertainties of the holiday season, to illustrate that the holidays does not always bring out the best in everyone, but in the end the film is very labouring and vague it feels like this film lasted longer than the duration that the editing was too rushed and way too obvious.It was the first time in 15 years that Nelson directed a film, the classic "I Am Sam", and I can the rust in her in this film. The acting was very awkward, the score was sloppily done by Nick Urata and the whole Christmas prone visuals can be quite painfully overdone. The overall feeling of the movie is more sugary than two dozen boxes of Christmas cookies and Steve Martin's voicing the inner thoughts of Rags the dog was completely wasted since he's a character of little thought let alone importance. The human emotions are meagre combined with scenes that feel more a sitcom than a movie and very limited family interaction, this holiday film is the definitive lump of cold black coal. In the end this movie has nothing to love about the Coopers and doesn't know what it wants to be or how to celebrate the holidays. This is one turkey you can stuff it.

When four generations of the Cooper clan come together for their annual Christmas Eve celebration, a series of unexpected visitors and unlikely events turn the night upside down, leading them all toward a surprising rediscovery of family bonds and the spirit of the holiday. When the CBS Logo appears you know that Love The Coopers will suck and it did the film has so many talented people and it's wasted by a stupid simple plot that goes wrong in many ways. Alan Arkin is in love with Amanda Seyfried then Olivia Wilde treats like crap to everyone and then this dumb unfunny kiss scene with John Goodman and Diane Keaton that makes the film even worse. A great cast to a horrible Christmas movie do they even know what humor means anymore?