People Like Us
Much like this weekend's Magic Mike, People Like Us is "inspired by a true story" of events that happened to co-writer and director, Alex Kurtzman, who is best known for writing blockbuster scripts like Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the Star Trek reboot, and two of the live action Transformers films. I'm all for the guy (and his writing partner, Roberto Orci) taking a break from big budget movies to do a sentimental drama based on something that happened to him, but it's ultimately pointless, since the movie ends up being so formulaic and completely by the book that all reality seems to have been sucked out of the premise. Magic Mike, which was inspired by star Channing Tatum's days as a stripper and male dancer, felt real and honest. This movie seems processed, manipulative, and melodramatic.
As the film opens, we're introduced to Sam (Chris Pine), a slick and brash young businessman who has a talent for making his clients think they've come out on top in their transactions with him, only to have him end up walking away with most of the profit. Sam has obviously been doing this long enough that he figures things will never go wrong, but they do, when he tries to ship some soup cans to a client in an unrefrigerated box, and they end up exploding before they can get to the buyer. Because of this, his boss (Jon Favreau) is breathing down his neck, and the Federal Trade Commission wants to investigate him. Right about this time, Sam gets news that his father has passed away. He never had a good relationship with his father, who was a successful record producer in the music business, but not a very successful dad to Sam. But, he needs a place to hide out from the FTC, so he decides to fly home to Los Angeles with his girlfriend, Hannah (Olivia Wilde).
Just in case we miss the point that Sam is supposed to be a selfish jerk who thinks only of himself, he deliberately misses the plane just so he won't have to sit through his father's funeral, and catches a later one that will make him arrive after it. His mother, Lilian (Michelle Pfeiffer), is wise to his tricks, however, so as soon as she sees him come home, she gives him a hard slap across the face before welcoming him back. It's the first of many emotional moments in People Like Us that just don't really ring true. The next day, Sam meets with his father's lawyer (Philip Baker Hall), who gives him $150,000 in cash, and a note from dad that says Sam needs to deliver the money to a sister that he never knew he even had. Looks like dad had a secret family on the side that he never told Sam about, though Lilian seems to know. Unfortunately, she avoids the issue every time he tries to talk about it. Therefore, he decides to track down this lost half-sister, all the while contemplating keeping the money for himself.
The sister is Frankie (played by a very good Elizabeth Banks), a down on her luck woman who is struggling to beat a past alcohol problem by going to AA meetings, and is equally struggling to raise a bright but troubled son named Josh (Michael Hall D'Addario), who is such a brat when we first meet him, we know that he has a heart of gold lurking underneath. He just needs the right father figure to bring it out. Wouldn't you know it, that's right about the time Sam enters their lives. He meets Frankie by following her to an AA meeting, where she conveniently reads their father's obituary in front of the whole group, which proves to Sam that she really is his sister. He continues to follow her around, until they strike up a conversation, and become very close friends. He even starts hanging around the house, and helping out with things and raising Josh.
This begins the forced plot from which the movie never recovers - Sam decides to keep their true relationship a secret from Frankie. If he would say just one simple phrase, "I am your brother", the movie would be over, so the screenplay naturally twists itself about and looks for opportunities for him to not spell things out. Therefore, we get some scenes between Sam and Frankie that almost seem like dates. They laugh over private dinners, they go on family outings together, and we can tell that poor, oblivious Frankie is starting to flirt with him just a little. Yet, even this does not inspire Sam to tell her the truth. He just keeps the lie going for reasons that make no sense. Of course, when the truth is eventually discovered, Frankie freaks out, kicks him out of their home, and we get a sequence where Sam almost throws everything away, but goes running back from the airport in a race to set things right again.
People Like Us is the kind of movie where every emotion is directly on the nose, and spelled out for the audience. There's not a hint of subtlety in its entire running time. Of the performances, only Elizabeth Banks makes much of an impression. She has a weariness and a sadness to her performance that lets us know she has the weight of the world on her shoulders, which fits her character. Chris Pine, on the other hand, is somewhat more subdued, and not in a good way. His performance usually ranges from understated to a fault and unemotional, to too much emotion, such as the scenes where he's supposed to be angry, and ends up screaming his lines. As for Pfeiffer, she exists simply for her big scene where she gets to reveal everything to her son about his father's secret past with another woman. Up until that scene, she's underused.
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