The Guilt Trip (2012)
I love it when a movie surprises me. When I first heard of The Guilt Trip, it didn’t sound appealing, but after being urged by a friend to watch it, I gave the movie a try. I found that it was both sweet and quite funny.
Chemist Andy Brewster (Seth Rogen) has developed ScieoClean, a revolutionary cleaning product, and is looking to market it to big retail chains around the country. His attempts have all been fruitless. Before going out to make his last pitches, he decides - against his better judgment - to invite his overbearing and neurotic mother (Barbra Streisand) along.
This is not a lame road trip movie where two people that don’t get along pass through one wacky scenario after another. There’s a lot more going on than what appears on the surface. It’s about a son that loves his mom but is annoyed with her too. He's changed but she's still checking up on him like he's five years old and forgets to clean his room. She's still telling the same lame jokes she did decades ago now. You and he know she means well, but children move out so they can stand on their own two feet, have some space. There's a lot of truth in the way Andy feels... but what about his mom? This picture by Anne Fletcher puts the shoes on the other foot. As the story progresses, we begin to question whether he (and therefore ourselves) has been treating his mother right.
That sounds like some heavy stuff, and it can be. For the most part, what you experience while watching The Guilt Trip is a fun buddy movie and two terrific, talented comedians playing off each other. Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogan are great in these roles! They’ve got perfect timing and a natural-feeling relationship. Younger movie-goers may know her mostly from the Fockers trilogy but she's got so much to offer. It’s not only that the situations the son and mother get into are funny; they're funny individually and even funnier as a pair.
As The Guilt Trip wrapped itself up, it delivered a wallop of an ending. It plays something like this: first, some effective emotional moments, quickly followed by the biggest laughs of the movie and finally a real home-run for our characters. The ending is perfect. Everything you wanted to see wrapped up quickly and efficiently. As a bonus, the end credits have some nice little segments thrown in too.
You have a mom? Looking for something to do with her on mother's day? Watch this. It'll have everyone watching in stitches and might even bring you closer too. (On Blu-ray, November 12, 2014)
