Review: Bland, Forgettable, 'This Is Where I Leave You' Starring Jason Bateman, Adam Driver, Tina Fey, Rose Byrne & More

This is a reprint of our review from the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

The proverb/cliché “you can never go home again” is arguably rooted in dysfunction. Hollywood will always contrive to make characters return home and face family melodrama whether they are willing or not, whether it be a reunion, a marriage, or of course, the one obligation almost impossible to escape: a funeral. So Shawn Levy’s “This Is Where I Leave You” exploits a death to bring a large and sprawling family back home, but with a somewhat new twist: utilizing the Jewish ritual of sitting Shiva —gathering to mourn for seven days while receiving visitors in the house of the deceased person— to keep a family claustrophobically under house arrest for an entire week.

Of course, the family in Levy’s film are non-practicing Jews and appear more like uptight WASPS than anything, and the father was even an Atheist, but that’s really beside the point. The observance is just a convenient conceit to...