Golublog: An Anthropology Blog

This 2003 film could have been a perfectly decent romantic comedy with a strong female cast, a fine supporting performance from Shirley Maclaine, and Julia Stiles’s enormous, round head. Instead, the film’s ambition to document the story of an entire family, and its own obvious infatuation with its characters lead to too many scenes too many, unbalancing the narrative. Stiles’s quirky family and warm relations with her sisters are charming, but ultimately slow down what could have been an even more charming courtship with Alessandro Nivola. Ultimately, the film’s grand designs are responsible for its failure to move beyond the genre that it attempts to transcend. Still, points for making Nivola’s handsome and three-dimensional character Jewish.