In "The Guilt Trip," Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand play Andy and Joyce Brewster, a mother/son odd couple that embarks on a cross-country road trip to wrangle investors for Andy's entrepreneurial enterprise.
Along the way they get stuck in unseasonal weather, compromising sexual situations (with other characters) and eat massive quantities of food in Texas. Basically, it's a road trip movie. You've seen it before, and why should you watch this one?
Rogen and Streisand are talented enough to sell the film's central relationship. Streisand's take on the stereotypical Jewish mother is, as expected, boisterous, but she manages to give the character sympathetic touches. Rogen takes a break from playing aimless, unsuccessful twentysomethings to play a directed, unsuccessful twenty-something, with his usual aw-shucks demeanor. Fortunately, the two mesh quite well. Their chemistry is by far the highlight of the film.
The rest? That's a different story. The comedy is contrived to the point of sometimes lacking a punchline. One memorable scene at the Grand Canyon, an off-target adventure supposedly serving as emotional catharsis for the characters, is particularly lame, as is Streisand's character eating a four-pound steak, a sequence that lasts as long as it would take to eat a real giant steak. Maybe it was a metaphor.
But really, what's the point of reviewing this film negatively? It is exactly as advertised, a standard road-trip film starring a generational cross-section of talent, built to appeal to as many viewers as possible, released on DVD close to Mother's Day. I'm sure there are many sons that will identify with Rogen's frustrations and many mothers who will sympathize with Streisand's difficulty identifying with her child. And they'll all hug and cry or whatever at the end of the film, having realized that parent-offspring relationships are not so difficult after all.
Thanks, Barb!
The Blu-ray pack I reviewed did not include any special features or commentary. It did, however, include a trailer for "Star Trek Into Darkness," which looks pretty cool.