*Minor spoilers ahead*
Julia Roberts strikes again! Basically, this film is a big ol' sticky wad of total melodrama about a bunch of snobby, spoiled rich people throwing tantrums whenever they don't get their own way. It's supposed to teach the audience something about growing up and bonding with stepparents and coping with divorce and terminal illness and a whole slew of other things, but in the end it's just stupid, contrived and stereotypical. All three of the female characters (Jackie, Isobel and Anna) are self-absorbed, rude and manipulative and the younger child (I forget his name) is supposed to be all cute and handsome and charismatic and blah-de-blah but instead he quickly becomes annoying. Anyway, the plot basically goes round and round in circles for the first forty-five minutes and then the writers realized that it wasn't going anywhere and decided to deal the Tearjerking Terminal Illness(tm) card just to wrap it up. So they have Susan Sarandon's character get cancer, resulting in a half-million Heartwrenching Goodbye Sequences(tm) which ultimately bring the family closer together. I have a lot of respect for many of the actors in this film, but in all honesty, the film itself was way too cheesy for me to stomach (no pun intended). If you're a big fan of any of the actors, it's probably worth it, though.
Julia Roberts strikes again! Basically, this film is a big ol' sticky wad of total melodrama about a bunch of snobby, spoiled rich people throwing tantrums whenever they don't get their own way. It's supposed to teach the audience something about growing up and bonding with stepparents and coping with divorce and terminal illness and a whole slew of other things, but in the end it's just stupid, contrived and stereotypical. All three of the female characters (Jackie, Isobel and Anna) are self-absorbed, rude and manipulative and the younger child (I forget his name) is supposed to be all cute and handsome and charismatic and blah-de-blah but instead he quickly becomes annoying. Anyway, the plot basically goes round and round in circles for the first forty-five minutes and then the writers realized that it wasn't going anywhere and decided to deal the Tearjerking Terminal Illness(tm) card just to wrap it up. So they have Susan Sarandon's character get cancer, resulting in a half-million Heartwrenching Goodbye Sequences(tm) which ultimately bring the family closer together. I have a lot of respect for many of the actors in this film, but in all honesty, the film itself was way too cheesy for me to stomach (no pun intended). If you're a big fan of any of the actors, it's probably worth it, though.