“THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU” ARRIVES WITH U.S. CRITICAL ACCLAIM

Press release

Variety's resident film reviewer Scott Foundas writes, “`This Is Where I Leave You' is a sprawling ensemble dramedy that starts out like a full-tilt sitcom and gradually migrates to a place of genuine feeling. Repping a concerted effort by `Night at the Museum' and `Cheaper by the Dozen' helmer Shawn Levy to spread his wings beyond the gilded cage of family-friendly tentpoles, this alternately manic and mawkish adaptation of Jonathan Tropper’s 2009 novel aims for `Terms of Endearment' territory and ends up somewhere closer to a Semitic `August: Osage County.' But a tremendous ensemble cast gives the pic a significant boost, especially when they’re allowed to act rather than merely act out.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

Continues Foundas, “[A]round the halfway mark, the movie quits trying quite so hard to make you love it and takes on a more nuanced, lifelike countenance. After setting up so many pat, obvious conflicts, Tropper’s screenplay then works through them in a somewhat less obvious fashion. The characters actually end up having to make some hard choices.”

Meanwhile, Betsy Sharkey of Los Angeles Times recommends that she “[C]an't think of a family I'd rather sit shiva with than the Altmans of `This Is Where I Leave You.' They bury their father with the right mix of tears and unearthed resentments, and they take the blows life hands them seriously enough but in stride. As if they are nothing special..This is exactly the charm of Jonathan Tropper's novel on which the comedy/drama is based.”

For his part, Newday's Rafer Guzman applauds, “Shawn Levy's new film, `This Is Where I Leave You,' checks off so many Hollywood boxes that you might suspect it of blatant pandering. Star-studded cast? Check. Based on best-selling novel? Check. Drama, romance, humor and pathos, all set against that instantly identifiable backdrop, the American suburb? Check, check and check.

“Despite or perhaps because of all that, `This Is Where I Leave You' works marvelously. Written by Jonathan Tropper from his novel about a dysfunctional Jewish family sitting shiva for its patriarch, [the film] is the year's first real crowd pleaser, a comedy-drama that presses all the right buttons but does so with intelligence and skill. It's not too heavy, not too light -- just right for a grown-up night at the movies.

Finally, Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter praises, “You laugh in spite of yourself in `This Is Where I Leave You,' a potty-mouthed comedy with enough exasperation, aggravations, long-standing grievances and get-me-outta-here moments of family stress to strike a chord with anyone who’s ever had to endure large clan gatherings that might have lasted a bit too long. The fact that many people will find something or someone to identify with here, even if they don’t have a mother with big new boobs prone to talking about sex most of the time the way Jane Fonda does here, should make Shawn’s Levy’s first R-rated comedy a much-needed hit for Warner Bros. Levy’s orchestration of the mayhem is silky smooth.”

The dramatic comedy “This is Where I Leave You” is directed by Shawn Levy, and based on the hilarious and poignant best-selling novel by Jonathan Tropper. It features a starring ensemble cast, including Jason Bateman, Tina Fey and Jane Fonda.

When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.

“This is Where I Leave You” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

This Is Where I Leave You movie review

This Is Where I Leave You is one of the movies you should watch this month. Here are the reasons why. It is a family drama which a slice of comedy. Sometimes, there are adult humor. It is the story of typical family when a death in the family gathered them all together. When the father died, it was his dying wish that they get together in one place.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

The story is something Filipino can appreciate. It is like any family drama our TV series or movies produces which is good meaning that we have stories that can be equaled to the quality of a Hollywood movie.

The casting is just sufficient. It was balanced with supporting actors with talents and some unknown to me with wonderful performances. Although Jason Bateman's character is probably the main character when the story started, the characters were balanced in scenes. The movie also introduces Jewish customs which is quite educational.

Besides, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Rose Byrne and Jane Fonda also stars. Just like in Monster-In-Law, Jane gives another breakthrough revelation that will make you gasps. Tina Fey is known for comedies but she did well with drama in this movie. You can also see Jason Bateman in another movie, Horrible Bosses 2. This Is Where I Leave You is shown exclusively for Ayala Cinemas and distributed and released by Warner Bros. Philippines. For more quality movie reviews, follow this blog or like L.E.N.S. blogs on Facebook.

ADAM DRIVER SHINES IN “THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU

Movie release material

Before donning the villain's cloak in the upcoming “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” promising actor Adam Driver (HBO's “Girls”) appears in Warner Bros. Pictures’ new heart-warming dramedy, “This is Where I Leave You” as Phillip, the youngest brother in an eccentric, dysfunction family.

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

When their father passes away, four grown siblings (Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Corey Stoll, Adam Driver), bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Let the madness begin.

Long on looks, wit, charm, and natural smarts, the youngest brother, Phillip, has always been a little short on maturity, sliding in and out of trouble so rapidly that his siblings have given up keeping track of him. It’s anyone’s guess as to how he makes a living or even where he is on any given day.

He also has a remarkable talent for pushing everyone’s buttons. Intentionally. He just enjoys the fireworks.

“Phillip is the hot mess of the family,” says director Shawn Levy.

“He’s the kid everyone indulged,” notes Driver. “He was raised around a lot of adult conversations and he missed out on playmates his own age, so he grew up fast in some ways, but it taught him how to grab people’s attention.”

It also taught Phillip about people’s behavior and motives, which makes for some spot-on insights he casually rolls out through the course of the story. Ironically, though, that doesn’t necessarily help him suss out his own motives. Case in point: his girlfriend, Tracy, an accomplished, sophisticated, straightforward woman considerably older than him…and bearing some rather unsettling similarities to his mother.

Says Driver, “Phillip is trying to identify himself in a new way and wants his siblings to see him as older, changed, more mature, but that’s hard when people are used to teaching you how to blow your nose. And Tracy may be a part of that. Maybe on some level he thinks that by being involved with her, by association, people will see him differently.”

As effectively as Driver captures the character, he nearly didn’t get the chance, due to his shooting schedule on “Girls,” Levy recalls. “He loved the role and I loved him and we all wanted him to do the movie. We worked it out and it was absolutely worth it. As Phillip, Adam is all instinct and charisma, and never a dishonest note, which is exactly what we needed.”

Driver says, “I’m so lucky to get to work on this. Phillip is a fascinating, optimistic character. He comes in thinking, ‘This is the perfect opportunity to finally get to know my older brothers and sister and bond with them.’ But he finds it difficult to come back to people who were there when he was in diapers. I’m always attracted to family dramas: they have so much history and potential for conflict.”

“This is Where I Leave You” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

JANE FONDA IN “THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU

Press release

The dysfunctional siblings (played by Jason Bateman and Tina Fey) in Warner Bros.' dramatic comedy “This is Where I Leave You” is presided over by their devoted but proudly unconventional mother, Hilary, played by legendary Oscar-winner Jane Fonda.

As complex and combustible as the kids’ bonds are with each other, they pale in comparison to their relationship with their mother, the simultaneously regal and earthy Hilary.

Says director Shawn Levy, “Hilary loves her kids fiercely and she’s bigger than life. I needed someone who was not only a great actress but could project a certain grandness as the matriarch of this family. Needless to say, Jane blew us all away.”

“I’ve done many comedies in my career but the style was different,” says Fonda. “Back in the good old days we didn’t do much exploring alternative ways to say something; we stuck to the script. So it was a learning experience for me, and something that interests me very much, this kind of comedy, as well as working with all these fabulously talented performers that Shawn brought together.”

“I really love this character,” she continues. “Hilary’s a woman with a touch of narcissism, who loves her children very much but is not much aware of boundaries. For the book she wrote on child-rearing 25 years ago, she used her own children as examples. It got pretty personal, and they still resent it.”

A best-selling author, herself, Fonda jokes, “I’ve written my own books and my children cringe, too, so I understand it well.”

Whether in print or conversation, nothing is off-limits for Hilary, from her kids’ potty training to their adolescent awakenings, to her own sexual history with their father, which makes for some exceedingly awkward moments at the reunion—especially when company is over. And now that she’s preparing for the 25th anniversary edition of her book with a publicity tour, they can look forward not only to the humiliation of her sharing their secrets anew, but of her doing it while showcasing a set of what one of her sons can only call “bionic breasts.”

Says producer Paula Weinstein, “She’s as inappropriate as a mother can be. Whatever is in her head comes out of her mouth. She feels that life is full of passion and drama and everything, and you must engage and embrace it. Consequently, Hilary has been an embarrassment to her children their entire lives. But, to her, there is no cause for embarrassment: people are just who they are.”

Audiences may see a bit of themselves or their loved ones in some of these characters. “The ecology of any family is complex, and who’s to say what normal is?” concludes Fonda. “Everyone has their own issues and there are all kinds of tensions, rivalries, jealousies and misunderstandings, which is just the nature of families. It’s easy to identify with, and great material for storytelling.”

In “This is Where I Leave You,” when their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.

This is Where I Leave You” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

TINA FEY IN “THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU

Movie release

Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner Tina Fey (“Date Night,” TV's “30 Rock”) stars as the fiercely supportive but undeniably bossy big sister, Wendy, in Warner Bros.' dramatic comedy “This is Where I Leave You” from director Shawn Levy.

When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.

“As the only girl in the family, Wendy has attempted to mother her two younger brothers, but she’s especially close to Judd,” says Tina Fey. “At first, she’s the only one who knows how Judd is living and that he’s left his wife and his job, and she’s a confidant to him even when he doesn’t want her as a confidant. She pulls the truth out of him like only an older sister can do, and they annoy each other in the way that only brothers and sisters can.”

Levy drew upon his relationship with his own sister in helping to develop the rapport between the two leads, saying, “I knew that the Wendy-and-Judd scenes would be the heart of the movie so we bolstered them and spent a lot of time focused on them in the writing and the performances. Tina Fey and Jason Bateman, who didn’t know each other prior to production, created a wonderfully intimate bond that is so authentic on screen.

“Tina brings all her sharpness and biting wit into play, but where Wendy’s story is also touched with pain she had to convey that sadness and vulnerability too,” Levy continues. “She took that leap and she absolutely soars.”

Tough as nails when she has to be—don’t cross her or anyone she loves—Wendy is the wise, warm, big sister with the awesome left hook. “She’s married to a workaholic,” offers Fey. “On paper, he’s everything she would be into: smart, successful, handsome…but he’s also a bit of a tool, like rolling calls at her father’s funeral. They have two young children so they’re also dealing with the stress and strain of that, but you get the feeling that maybe they weren’t the greatest couple even before that.”

All of this is thrown into perspective when Wendy comes home and catches sight of Horry Callen, the boy she left behind.

Timothy Olyphant stars as the strong yet touchingly fragile Horry, whose setbacks have not dampened his sense of humor so much as lent it a certain philosophic edge. “Horry and Wendy were in love,” Olyphant explains. “They were high school sweethearts and it was a lovely thing, but then a tragic accident happened and Horry became incapable of having the kind of life and relationship Wendy would have wanted—and that he wanted for her. So she got on with life and married someone else. But when she comes home and sees him, it’s an opportunity for a time out. It’s as if that relationship and that love still exists for both of them in some kind of timeless bubble.”

“This is Where I Leave You” is distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

JASON BATEMAN STARS IN “HORRIBLE BOSSES 2,” “THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU”

Release material

Golden Globe Award-winner Jason Bateman (TV's “Arrested Development,” “Hancock”) headlines two consecutive comedies from Warner Bros. Pictures: the laugh-out-loud “Horrible Bosses 2” and the inspiring “This is Where I Leave You.”

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

In “Horrible Bosses 2,” everyone's favorite working stiffs Nick (Bateman), Dale (Charlie Day) and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) rally with an original invention and another run at the American dream. But a slick investor (Christoph Waltz) soon pulls the rug out from under them. Outplayed and desperate, and with no legal recourse, the three would-be entrepreneurs hatch a misguided plan to kidnap the investor’s adult son (Chris Pine) and ransom him to regain control of their company.

Of the three leads, Bateman had arguably the toughest assignment just because, as Nick, he had to keep the smile off his face most of the time — a tall order in this company. “His timing is masterful,” sayss producer Chris Bender. “He knows exactly when to deliver a cutting line or a look that takes the other guys out at the knees for being such boneheads.”

But for all of Nick’s assumptions that he’s in charge and he’s the smart one and the voice of reason, and for all the valid points he does occasionally raise about the pitfalls of what they’re about to do, the fact remains that he always ends up going along with the plan.

Bateman notes, “My job as Nick is to be as close as possible to a representative for the audience, and to react to the absurdity in these scenarios in enough of a realistic way so they don’t think it’s too goofy. But honestly, most people are a lot brighter than these three; most people wouldn’t think that killing their bosses or kidnapping their business partner is the right thing to do, or has the slightest chance of working out well. But if they were smart, this would be a drama.”

Meanwhile, Bateman's other film “This is Where I Leave You” deals his character a series of gut punches in rapid succession. He plays Judd Altman, a presumably happily married and successfully employed radio producer with a comfortable and tastefully furnished New York City apartment. He comes home one day to find his perfect wife in bed with his perfectly loathsome boss, and is rendered loveless, jobless and homeless in one lightning bolt of misery. His resulting downward spiral is only interrupted, days later, by the news that his father has passed away. Still shell-shocked, Judd is summoned back to his childhood home to reconnect with his three contentious adult siblings and their unapologetically outspoken mother, who insists they all spend the next seven days together—and won’t take no for an answer. On its surface, perhaps, not the likeliest scenario for a laugh-out-loud experience and yet, wherever there are momentous, life-altering events, there is family. And where there is family, well…

“It’s a breeding ground for dysfunction,” offers Bateman. “You have people who are very passionate about their positions, be they practical or emotional or ethical, and there’s all that shared history with its resentments and unresolved issues. So it’s not difficult to find these characters in a situation where their dignity starts to unravel and their vulnerability is at such a place where they do and say things that are heartwarmingly hilarious to witness.”

Considering all that Judd has already endured, this sounds like the last thing in the world he needs but, in fact, may be exactly what he needs most. Because sometimes you have to go home to find out where you got lost.

There’s a lot going on in “This is Where I Leave You,” but the narrative thread begins and ends with Judd. “He’s a fairly happy guy,” Bateman says of his character just before the bottom drops out of everything. “He produces a popular radio show, and even though he’d really rather be doing something else, he puts up with it because it allows him this perfect life he’d mapped out for himself. Judd doesn’t have a huge tolerance for complications and spontaneity. And then things start to go sideways—his marriage falls apart, there’s a death in the family—and it knocks him off balance.”

Author Jonathan Tropper whose novel the film is adapted from, conceived of Judd as a man always on the straight and narrow. “He plays it safe so everything will work out the way he’s planned. But when he’s plunged into a state of crisis, Judd starts to feel that all the assumptions he had growing up, and on which he based his entire life, may have been faulty, and maybe he should have been less determined to control the outcome and more invested in discovering his true self.”

“Jason’s performance is a microcosm of the film’s tone as he pivots in the same second from funny to touching,” adds director Shawn Levy.

Concludes Bateman, “Judd’s journey is to figure out if he’s pointed in the right direction, and try to get a clue, or two or three, which he receives through some of the circumstances he goes through and some of the people he interacts with in the film—most of whom are going through much the same exercise.”

Inner photo from Horrible Bosses 2 and main photo from This Is Were I Leave You. Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

JOYS, PAINS OF FAMILY AT HEART OF “THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU”

Press release

From director Shawn Levy (“Real Steel”) comes the dramatic comedy “This is Where I Leave You” based on the hilarious and poignant best-selling novel by Jonathan Tropper.

It features a starring ensemble cast, including Golden Globe-winner Jason Bateman (“Arrested Development”); Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Tina Fey (“30 Rock”); and two-time Oscar winner, multiple Golden Globe honoree and Emmy Award nominee Jane Fonda (“Coming Home,” HBO’s “The Newsroom”).

When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.

The film also stars Adam Driver (“Girls”), Rose Byrne (“Bridesmaids”), Corey Stoll (“Midnight in Paris”), Kathryn Hahn (“Parks and Recreation”), Connie Britton (“Nashville”), Timothy Olyphant (“Justified”), Dax Shepard (“Parenthood”), Debra Monk (“Damages”), Abigail Spencer (“Rectify”), and Ben Schwartz (“House of Lies”).

Filmmaker Shawn Levy’s response to This is Where I Leave You was heartfelt and immediate. “I loved it,” Levy recalls of his first time reading Jonathan Tropper’s richly entertaining, best-selling novel about love, loss, family, growing up, and getting on with the business of life. “It resonated for me in ways that were both comedic and deeply moving. There was something in its blend of humanity, warmth and humor that rang true, and I knew it was a movie I wanted to make, a story I wanted to share.”

It may seem like something of a departure for Levy, best known by moviegoers around the world for the blockbuster “Night at the Museum” films. “At the time, I was doing bigger, broader comedy, whereas this is more character-based and nuanced in its detail, so it had to be drawn with a finer brush,” he says.

“This is Where I Leave You” finds Levy still very much in the business of making people laugh, but this time those laughs spring from a more intimate place, as the film holds up a mirror to the kinds of emotional entanglements, conflicts and secrets, pitfalls, pratfalls and second chances in life that we can all relate to, as the ties that bind often tie us up in knots. “It’s a grounded, honest story about human behavior and connections that I think is as comfortable being funny as it is being poignant,” he adds.

The producers hired Tropper to write the screenplay for “This is Where I Leave You,” marking the first time the author has adapted his own work for the screen.

Says Tropper, “Working with Shawn and the producers, seeing other people get invested in these characters in a different way, and then seeing the actors make them their own; it’s been an exciting process.”

For those who loved the story and will be rediscovering it on the big screen, he adds, “I’ve always been a big movie fan and I look at movies as a very different animal, so it wasn’t really hard to take apart the book and find the movie inside of it. It’s the same message and the same story. The hardest part was finding the balance between what people would find fun and entertaining and, at the same time, wanting them to be touched by its underlying themes.”

Throughout, Tropper worked closely with Levy, who felt, “It was my job to honor the novel. Much of my process was reminding Jonathan of the beauty of his prose and importing ideas, or lines, or whole scenes from the novel.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever followed my gut as faithfully as I did in the pursuit of this book, and this story, and really in every decision I made during the making of this movie,” the director continues. “The reason I wanted to make it was because it’s so inspirational and warm-hearted and redeeming in ways that I like movies to be.”

This is Where I Leave You” will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.

WARNER'S NEW DRAMEDY “LEAVES” FIRST TRAILER

Warner Bros. Pictures' new dramatic comedy “This is Where I Leave You,” directed by Shawn Levy, and based on the hilarious and poignant best-selling novel by Jonathan Tropper, has just unreeled its first trailer.

            The film features a starring ensemble cast including Golden Globe winner Jason Bateman (“Arrested Development”); Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Tina Fey (“30 Rock”); and two-time Oscar® winner, multiple Golden Globe honoree and 2013 Emmy Award nominee Jane Fonda (“Klute,” “Coming Home,” HBO’s “The Newsroom”). 

            When their father passes away, four grown siblings, bruised and banged up by their respective adult lives, are forced to return to their childhood home and live under the same roof together for a week, along with their over-sharing mother and an assortment of spouses, exes and might-have-beens. Confronting their history and the frayed states of their relationships among the people who know and love them best, they ultimately reconnect in hysterical and emotionally affecting ways amid the chaos, humor, heartache and redemption that only families can provide—driving us insane even as they remind us of our truest, and often best, selves.

            Levy, who helmed the blockbuster “Night at the Museum” films, as well as “Date Night” and “Real Steel,” directs from a screenplay by Jonathan Tropper. 

            The film also stars Adam Driver (HBO’s “Girls,” upcoming “Star Wars: Episode VII”), Rose Byrne (“Bridesmaids,” “X-Men: First Class”), Corey Stoll (“Midnight in Paris”) and Kathryn Hahn (“We're the Millers”).

            This is Where I Leave You” will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment company.