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The Joneses
Derrick Borte
Amber Heard, Demi Moore, David Duchovny, Ben Hollingsworth, Glenn Headley, Gary Cole, Lauren Hutton
(Roadside Attractions; US theatrical: 16 Apr 2010; UK theatrical: 16 Apr 2010; 2009)
There is nothing more frustrating than a promising idea poorly executed. The combination of potential and lack of payoff seems to countermand everything we love - and lament - about the artform known as film. Now imagine a fantastic idea so thoroughly fumbled that it makes you question the motives of all involved. The level of annoyance involved would be almost too great to measure. Clearly suffering from first time feature filmmakers syndrome, writer/director Derrick Borte drags David Duchovny and Demi Moore into his decidedly un-dark satire about materialism, marketing, and upward mobility. But for everything The Joneses gets almost right, it manages to mess up with uneven tone, slack characterization, and an obvious lack of experience behind the lens.
When they move into a hyper-ritzy suburban community, the Joneses seem to fit right in. Kate (Moore) is a sensational supermom who wears the latest fashions and throws fabulous parties while Steve (Duchovny) drives a splashy sports coupe and rules the links with a effortless scratch golf game. Daughter Jenn (Amber Heard) is a pop culture prima donna, while son Mick (Ben Hollingsworth) has every gadget and high tech toy his classmates clamor for. To neighbors such as Summer (Glenne Headly) and Larry (Gary Cole), they represent everything a successful modern clan can be - except, the Joneses aren’t really ‘related’ in the traditional sense. Instead, they are stealth marketers, working for a company that caters to the rich and influential. Using the false familial facades, they hope to entice potential consumer to the products they represent.
Giving away its cheeky premise within the first ten minutes and then lacking any reason or direction to exist from then on, The Joneses is a sensible screed about the economic downturn that loses its way before the debate truly begins. As a filmmaker, Borte has no other experience behind the lens and several shaky credits as a writer and producer. So putting his untried talents behind this tricky, complex idea just begs for a level of missed opportunity. It is easily and often achieved. The Joneses often feels like it consistently overlooks its own message. Imagining this material in the hands of a true auteur or artist - David Fincher, Sam Mendes - who gets the societal ugly underneath, who can visualize and infer the crassness the concept represents, makes the experience all the more aggravating.
Add in the fact that Duchovny and Moore do some of their best work in a long while here and The Joneses should soar. The McMansion crowd really does need taking down several mortgage foreclosure pegs and both stars seem willing to wallow in the ‘buy, buy, buy’ excesses until the repo men show up. The former Mr. X-Files is particularly good as the new guy brought in to balance out the nuclear clan, and his crisis of conscience halfway through carries most of the narrative’s more crucial elements. Moore evens things out by playing a thoroughly post post-modern woman. She can be shrewd and smart as well as sexy and silly. Had the movie merely focused on them, their inconsequential kids, and the eventual reveal of their secret, we’d have something both shocking and salient, a quirky dark comedy as well as a sign of the tentative times.
But then Heard and Hollingsworth have to show up as two sides of the same clichéd kid coin and everything stops dead again. She cannot be as on the ball as Moore, so Jenn is turned into a hosebag, the kind of deluded slut arm candy who is destined to learn her ‘other woman’ lessons the hard knocked nude whore way. Similarly, Mick is so mired in Good Looking Guy Syndrome that when he ignores a clearly interested rebel classmate (Christine Evangelista), you just know he’s got a closeted secret to keep. Indeed, almost any time the focus moves from parent to child, The Joneses deflates. We could care less if Jenn winds up with one of the sleazy-ball weekend warriors she beds, and Mick’s superficial sense of silent self-loathing makes his last act reveal pathetic, not cathartic.
Still, the biggest problem here is Borte. He lacks the attention to detail and the big picture prescience to make his frequently fun observations truly resonate. Take the title - a knock on the whole “keeping up with the…” concept. Instead of using that maxim as a means of undermining the brainwashed backdrop for the family’s marketing success, Borte avoids going Stepford and instead evokes sitcom. This is particularly true of satellite couple Summer and Larry. With their sexual/social dysfunctional, lime green envy, and clearly troubled psyche, they are a tragic beat waiting for the clunky screenplay to write in their send-off. When it comes, it’s poignant, but also underwhelming. It’s nothing more than a last gasp attempt at bringing some manner of distress to what’s been a breezy, boorish ride.
It all comes down to potential. One can easily imagine The Joneses without the secret being shared so early on (it was part of the trailer and most of the TV ads). You can almost visualize a witty, skewed examination of our current crass consumer culture in which, after 90 minutes or so of emotional investment, the perfect family turns out to be the carefully conceived brainchild of some cynical paid consultants - and believe it or not, they actually love being the huckster. Think of how much more effective Duchovny and Moore’s arc would be if we too believe they are a happy loving couple, only to have that romantic rug pulled out from under us.
If it had been razor sharp instead of lazy, had it been brave enough to truly uncover the reasons why Americans bury their multitude of problems in layers of designer label dreams, The Joneses would be one of the year’s best. Instead, it’s that most maddening of motion picture paradigms - a great concept badly bungled.
