After losing her job, making out with her soon-to-be former boss, and finding out that her daughter plans to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend, Claudia Larson faces spending the holiday with her unhinged family.
Foster's second directorial effort is a vividly drawn if too episodic portrait of an eccentric family, well acted by the entire cast, especially Holly Hunter and Robery Downey Jr.
– Emanuel Levy,
Variety,
18 Oct 2008
rotten:
Spirited but uneven.
– Janet Maslin,
New York Times,
20 May 2003
fresh:
Neither caustic nor sentimental, it's a film that maybe half the people on Earth have at one time considered writing.
– Mick LaSalle,
San Francisco Chronicle,
18 Jun 2002
rotten:
Foster keeps the party hopping, although more dark humor would have helped before she winds it down with sentiment and bromides.
– Peter Travers,
Rolling Stone,
12 May 2001
rotten:
Foster and Richter, of course, want to do more than make audiences laugh; they want us to be touched by their characters' humanity and take an interest in a budding romance, but that rarely is the case.