Tell me a story

Sam is a salesman. Sort of. He barters companies’ excess goods. He’s just made a rather large barter with a hefty commission, but that same day he finds out that one of his previous deals has gone bad, costing the company a lot of money, even getting it in trouble with the FTC. His entire commission is withheld from him to pay off the company’s losses, and if he doesn’t make things right, he’ll be fired. Later that night when he goes home, he finds out that his dad is dead. Compare his reactions to both pieces of bad news.

Sam (played by Chris Pine) and his girlfriend Hannah (played by Olivia Wilde) reluctantly fly to California for the funeral, one more reluctant than the other. Once there we see that the relationship between Sam and his mother (played by Michelle Pfeifer) is rather tense. Apparently Sam has only been home a handful of times in the last thirteen years, and he isn’t there a day before he’s ready to fly out again. But then he learns that his dad has left him $150,000… to deliver to a sister and nephew he never knew he had.

So Sam does what anyone else would do: he spies on them and then enters their lives under false pretenses. His sister Frankie (played by Elizabeth Banks) is a single mother, works all hours of the day at hotel bar trying to provide for son, Josh (played by Michael Hall D’Addario). Josh is at that age where he’s getting into trouble at school. Frankie is almost pushed to wit’s end when she learns that the father that abandoned her when she was 8 years old is dead and his obituary doesn’t even mention that she exists. She could use a friend or a brother right about now. Enter Sam.

The two strike a quick and easy friendship. Sam, who’s never been close with the family he’s had all his life, now finds himself growing very close to his new family. He knows he should tell them the truth, but the closer he gets to them, the harder that becomes; Frankie doesn’t have fond feelings for the unknown family that her dad left her for, and she won’t be happy to find out that the guy she and her son have been spending time with has been lying to her. He could just leave them, but that’s getting harder for him also. They could really use some family, and so could he. While this inner debate is going on, he’s aware that he still needs to do something about his work problems as well as the problems all this stress is causing for his relationship, not to mention the unresolved problems he still has with his mother. He’s got to feel like has the weight of the world on his shoulders.

I hope that’s not telling too much about the plot of the movie. All the story details above you can more or less gather from the trailer. But even if you know too much about the movie, I don’t think it spoils anything. It’s not a difficult movie to predict. You get exactly what you expect, and personally I was happy for that. Before I walked into the theater, I figured that this experience would change Sam for the better. He’d learn the value of family and maybe open up some new part of himself. He’d probably resolve issues with his mom and receive acceptance from his new sister. Usually predictability in a movie isn’t a positive. But this time that’s exactly what I wanted. I wanted to follow Sam as he hit all the beats I just described and watch him grow.

This isn’t the kind of film I’d usually want to see. Family dramas usually aren’t at the top of my must-see movies list. But People Like Us had a few things going for it. First was simply its premise. I wanted to see what happened when a brother and sister meet for the first time as adults. How does that relationship develop? Would there be romantic tension since they don’t both know they’re related?

Second was Chris Pine’s character. Here is this flawed but basically good guy. He has so many problems he has to fix, but he keeps making it worse for himself while trying to figure out how and if he should do the right thing. I haven’t been in his situation before, but I felt I could identify with him. It’s worth mentioning that had this movie been told from the sister’s perspective instead of the brother’s, I wouldn’t have wanted to see it as much. I wouldn’t have related as well, no matter how cool Elizabeth Banks is. She’s actually the third reason I wanted to see this movie.

I’ve become a big fan of Elizabeth over the past few years. She always manages to be funny, sexy, and smart in her roles, like in 30 Rock, Scrubs, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. You get the sense that she’s an easy-going girl who’s at home with the guys or the girls equally. I thought she’d be good in this role, but she surprised me by being great. She gives an outstanding performance that I didn’t even know she had in her. It was cool getting to see her in a more dramatic role that required her to call on some pretty raw emotions.

Obviously I recommend this movie. I liked how they explored family and the concept that family can screw you up but ultimately can offer you redemption. It’s not a new idea: families can cause you more pain than anyone else, but they have the potential to bring you more joy than anyone else. They’re the people you wouldn’t necessarily spend time with if you weren’t connected by blood, yet that bond is stronger than most of the other bonds you’ll make in your life. So watch the trailer and know that you’re guaranteed to get exactly what you expect. Sometimes that’s not a good thing. Here it was the best possible thing.

People Like Us
Director: Alex Kurtzman
Writers: Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Together: Mission: Impossible III, Transformers 1 & 3, Star Trek, Cowboys and Aliens ), and Jody Lambert