Hollywood hues
Trite script

An unimaginative plot with stereotypes makes Anywhere But Home
a predictable fare, writes Ervell E. Menezes

Christmas is a common occurrence on celluloid. It happens at least half a dozen times in the year and the Xmas lunches, music and family reunions tend to get predictable. So director Seth Gordon takes a dig at these meets in Anywhere But Home, which is not a bad idea but the manner in which he goes about it is pathetic, resorting to an overdose of slapstick trite, asinine gags which would not raise a handful of laughs.

Slapstick was understandable in those distant days of silent movies. Today scriptwriters are supposed to fill in the gap. But sadly this doesn’t always happen. It is an unimaginative script with stereotypes making the fare very predictable.

Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are a happily unmarried, upscale Los Angeles’ couple, who embark on a holiday during Christmas to avoid those boring family events. But due to the fog at the airport, they are seen on TV so they just cannot avoid their families. They finally end up attending four Christmas get-togethers with their respective parents, who are living separately thanks to the high divorce rate.

Brad’s brothers are karate-judo wizards and get to work on him double quick much to the astonishment of poor Kate. Worse is to follow as the precocious kids too have a field day with their antics. In a quarter of an hour, the film is doomed to disaster. This means the next 75 minutes one suffers with their poor attempts at humour.

Yesteryear big names Robert Duval, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight and Mary Steenburgen take on forgettable cameos and our two lovebirds find things intolerable. The small tiffs grow bigger till the big fight is on. Suddenly they realise they are fighting like a married couple. No prizes for guessing what happens next.

But there’s not an iota of credibility in the whole story. It is just irreverence for the sake of irreverence. Actually the burly Vince Vaughn has great comic potential but he must be handled correctly. Director Seth Gordon`A0lets him run riot, which is his undoing. The trite script is another handicap and way beyond the halfway mark one has given up any hope, whatsoever. It may sound like a cliched but Hollywood is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

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