Movie Review: The Joneses (2009)

The Joneses (2009) - USA - Drama - Rated R

Directed by Derrick Borte

Starring Demi Moore, David Duchovny, Amber Heard, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Gary Cole, Glenne Headly, Lauren Hutton, Chris Williams, Christine Evangelista

An unusual movie premise that still delivers a satisfying story despite going against the conventions of character development and being extremely out of touch with audiences.

A new family is moving in to the posh, upscale, overly rich suburb. They are the Jones family and not only are the neighbors happy to welcome them to the neighborhood, they are also interested in all the latest gadgets, fashions, home entertainment, lawn equipment, sporting goods, jewelry and cars the Joneses are all too happy to show off. Everybody is trying to keep up with the Joneses, but keeping up can be costly, especially as this seemingly normal family is not so normal and has several secrets they are hiding.

In its most basic form storytelling is about the characters involved in the story. Whether plot driven or character driven there is some identity with characters in a story. But what if those characters have no identity? The Joneses takes this unconventional path of storytelling and runs with it. It does make for an interesting story despite not being able to connect with the protagonists of the story.

The movie, for me, has several downsides. The protagonists of the story, whomever they are, are pretty much self-absorbed; the lack of identity alone makes it difficult enough to connect with the characters and it becomes even more so with characters who are all about themselves. The neighborhood into which the characters have moved is truly upscale; if it's not difficult enough to connect with abstract characters add to that an environ that is out of touch, I would think, with the average movie goer. Not only is the movie predictable, the ending seemed rushed and rather like an afterthought that was tacked on to have a nice happy ending, for whomever those people are.

Now I may have seemed to complain a lot, but when all is said and done it is still an enjoyable movie, probably more for its differences than any of its standard ingredients it is lacking in.

My Rating: 3 Fingers

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I Took Off A Little More Than The Summer

I had not intended to take a break from movie reviewing and otherwise tending to my blog, and certainly not for so long. Nothing was wrong, I have just been working a different job and with the summer and especially the summer holidays it has been quite a bit of work.

I have mostly just been online checking my email and doing some occasional online shopping. Pretty much the same thing as most internet users. My laptop did develop problems with its power supply, actually the power supply connector of the laptop itself, preventing me from using it while it is plugged in. Being a few years old it holds a charge for an hour or so limiting the amount of time I can be online.

I pretty much watched movies and worked during the summer months. Aside from neglecting my blog I also gathered quite a backlist of movie reviews to write. But just going to have to take them one at a time and concentrate more on movies I haven't seen, and if I happen to get to my backlist too then that will be all the better.

I'm going to also be doing tech reviews on this blog. Being that some of my online shopping has been for an internet tablet and I've been looking at media players and the possibility of a new cellphone, I thought it would be a good idea to take my recent product experiences, not necessarily a lot of good experiences in there, and share it with others who hopefully will use it to make better choices than I made and won't spend as much as I ended up spending.

Stay Tuned

Toxic Fletch