Friday, November 14, 2008

Maybe Tolstoy was wrong when he wrote that all happy families are alike but that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. The family at the center of "Familiar Strangers" certainly makes much of its own dysfunction. In fact, it's the subject of much of the film's conversation, which takes place over a long Thanksgiving homecoming in Staunton, Va.

To my mind, though, the Worthington clan doesn't seem all that different from many other families.

There's eldest son Brian (Shawn Hatosy), who moved away to become a technical writer rather than take over the family hardware store. Then there's little brother Kenny (DJ Qualls), an aspiring photojournalist who refuses to grow up; bitter divorced sister Erin (Cameron Richardson), who drives a snack food truck; their chipper mother (Ann Dowd); and emotionally withholding father (Tom Bower).

Far from perfect but also far from unique. In fact, they seem a heck of a lot more normal than the family in, say, "Little Miss Sunshine."

Despite the film's honest, low-key performances, the script by John Bell at times sounds written rather than felt. But maybe that's just Kenny, who responds to every interpersonal hiccup with a "Juno"-esque wisecrack. It's he who first brings up -- seriously, not sardonically -- the notion of euthanizing the father's cancer-stricken dog, an idea that becomes the catalyst for the weekend's touching, if somewhat forced, rapprochement.

Directed by Zackary Adler, "Familiar Strangers" puts the emphasis on the familiar over the strange, in ways that are both good and bad.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

Familiar Strangers PG-13, 86 minutes Contains crude language and discussion of death. At Fairfax Cinema Arts Theatre.