The first time Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston) even knows that his 22 year old daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch) is dating is when she Skypes him in the middle of his 55th Birthday party to wish him happy birthday. He, and his party guests, catch much more than they bargained for when they spot Laird (James Franco) who has just walked into Stephanie’s room. Totally unaware that she is on a video phone call, he strips his pants off and starts to moon her, and a close up sight of his bare butt on the screen brings the party to a very rapid end.
Nevertheless Stephanie persuades her family for once to break with their traditional Christmas in Michigan and to fly out instead to San Diego to meet the man that she says that she has just started dating. She has however yet to break the news to them that Laird is not one of her fellow students at Stanford University, but is in fact 10 years older than her and a billionaire CEO of a Silicon Valley high tech corporation complete with luxury mansion and all the trappings. Laird is also extremely socially awkward so the moment the family arrives he immediately starts to compensate too hard to make Ned, and his wife Barbara (Megan Mullally) and son Scotty (Griffin Gluck) like him.
It’s going to be an uphill struggle as they are worlds apart. Ned is an affable conservative man who is revered by the staff of the small ailing printing business that has been in his family for generations and which he is single-handedly trying to save just so he does not disappoint all the people who depend on him. Laird on the other hand is brash and thoughtless and relies heavily on Gustav (a rather wonderful Keegan-Michael Key) who serves as his majordomo/sidekick/enforcer/fight instructor to help fulfill his zany and madcap plans.
Laird is essentially well-meaning but his stream of ridiculous gestures such as tattooing the Flemings Christmas card o his back, and his potty-mouth curses plus his insistence on close bodily contact with the family, has them recoiling in horror with the single exception of Scotty who looks on Laird as the wicked older brother he never had. When Laird complains to Gustave about not making headway in winning the Flemings over he mistakenly adds ‘we at least speak the same language’ to which Gustave retorts ‘but yours contains a resounding amount of f–k!’
It’s very obvious though from the start in this script penned by director John Hamburg along with Jonah Hill, that love will win through no matter how much they pretend it will not. It’s the actual journey to get to this ending that is the point of this somewhat outrageous comedy as it provides a scenario to make conventional Ned unbearably uncomfortable until he weakens his dislike of his only daughter’s suitor. It comes at the very same point when we realize that Laird , under all the posturing and dramatic gestures it not such a terrible person and in fact,he and Ned have quite a lot in common after all …..hence that’s why Stephanie spookily started dating him in the first place.
Franco is completely in his element as Laird as no actor plays obnoxious on the screen with such an alarming conviction as he does. In fact these days he seems to be typecast to either play a stream of characters like this, or another of his gay-for-pay roles that he is somewhat fixated with. Neither Cranston or Mullally are not particularly good fits in roles which hardly stretch them at all, and reminds us that the latter should be on our screens more often but preferably in something more substantial than that.
The audience at the screening I attended constantly roared with laughter as there are undoubtedly parts in this slapstick comedy that are hilariously funny, but the crass humor never elevates itself above the waistline and has a juvenile obsession with both toilets and/or sex, which will certainly not appeal to everyone.
