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The Family Stone | 2005 | PG-13 | - 4.3.4

Diane Keaton stars as the matriarch of the rather laidback Stone family, which is gathering in its New England home for the holidays. As they arrive, they are all anticipating that the eldest son will be bringing his girlfriend along, and will be asking her to marry him. The get-together does not go smoothly: cultures and personalities clash and everyone is forced to re-evaluate their motivations. Also with Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Claire Danes and Rachel McAdams. Directed by Thomas Bezucha. [1:42]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A husband and wife kiss in bed, she opens her top and we see her chest with a surgical scar (presumably from a mastectomy), he caresses her chest and they kiss again.
 A woman wakes up in bed (we see her in a bra), and a man comes out of the shower bare-chested and wrapped with a towel around his waist (it is implied that they had sex the night before). A woman wears a low-cut jacket that reveals cleavage, and a woman wears a low-cut blouse that reveals cleavage and part of her bra.
 A man puts his hands in a woman's jacket and caresses her chest. A woman dances suggestively in front of a jukebox and a man and a woman dance together.
 A man and a woman hold each other in bed. A man and a woman hug, and a husband and wife caress each other tenderly.
 A woman talks about the boy with whom her daughter had her first sexual experience, and a woman asks a man about whether he is the one who was another woman's first sexual partner.
 We hear that a woman and a man are "making out" in the front of an ambulance. A woman is uncomfortable sleeping in the same room with her boyfriend in his family's home, and a gay couple arrives for a visit.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - A man lunges at another man, chases him through a house, they run through a kitchen hitting a woman and causing her to spill a dish of food on her and the floor, another woman slips in the mess and lands hard on the floor, and one man tackles the other man; they both end up with bloody scratches on their faces and the woman has a bruised eye.
 A woman stumbles down the stairs of a bus and falls hard on the ground. A woman slaps a man hard in the face. A man and a woman hit each other on the back of the head (they are brother and sister).
 People tease a woman relentlessly and she becomes very uncomfortable. A woman makes extremely insensitive remarks about a man being hearing impaired and about a gay couple wanting to adopt a child.
 A woman opens her top and we see her chest with a surgical scar, presumably from a mastectomy.

LANGUAGE 4 - 7 sexual references, 4 scatological terms, 5 mild obscenities, 1 derogatory term for homosexuals, name-calling (jerks), 3 religious profanities, 12 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - One character refers to wanting marijuana, another to not allowing it in her house, and there are suggestions of people having smoked marijuana. A man and a woman drink alcohol in a bar and the woman appears to be drunk, people drink wine with meals in a few scenes, people are shown drinking beer in a bar, and a man drinks beer in a few scenes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Family, drugs, habitual drug users, relationships, homosexuality, homosexual couples adopting, multi-racial couples, hearing impairment, control, grief, sorrow, death of a parent, death of a spouse, commitment, normality, tenderness, fear of death, parenting, mistakes, happiness, protecting our children, motherhood, destiny, terminal illness, breast cancer.

MESSAGE - Some things in life cannot be fixed but keeping family close can help us survive them.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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