Family Stone: Christmas Review

Ben Stone: [to Meredith] Don't dilly-dally there, pretty lady. We're all gonna be down here talking about you. 

Meredith Morton: I don't care whether you like me or not!

Amy Stone: Of course you do.

 Amy Stone: [about Meredith] She has got this throat-clearing tick... it's like she's digging for clams! 

Meredith Morton: [crying after Sybil and Amy come into the kitchen and accidentally ruin the breakfast she made] I'm just as good as any of you!
Amy Stone: [laughing and crying at the situation] Maybe better.
Meredith Morton: [still crying] What's so great about you guys?
Sybil Stone: [laughing and crying along with Amy... patting Meredith's cheeks] Oh, nothing! It's just that we're all that we've got.

Just from reading these quotes from the film The Family Stone, you probably gain the notion that the Stone family doesn't care much for Meredith Morton. In fact you might say they hate her. But that isn't the case. It's just that Meredith is different.

The Family Stone is one of my favorite Christmas movies, one I watch regularly every Christmas season.
Although it doesn't get much fan fare on television, it truly is a great film with an all-star cast.

 

I probably may have never watched this film, but what struck me was the star-studded cast involved,

so I figured it had to be good.

Meredith Morton is visiting her boyfriend Everett Stone's family for the first time. Meredith is an eccentric, pompous, high society business woman played by Sarah Jessica Parker. And Everett's family is more of the free-spirited type of family living in a Connecticut farm house. Meredith tries too hard to get the family to like her and that's where things go wrong. 

Diane Keaton plays Sybil Stone, the mother of five kids, each child living a different life style but, together as a family they are crazy and love each other in ways that's hard to explain.

I love how Sybil expresses how their family really is,

"Our family, it's all we've got!"

Sybil is the mother figure who runs the family, kind of like the Godfather patriarch of the Stone family.

She loves each of her kids no matter what their choices in life are. One son Thaddeus, is not only deaf but gay. So, naturally during Christmas Eve dinner with the entire Stone family, Meredith inserts her foot in mouth and causes discomfort to a family she hardly knows. Upon Thaddeus and his partner Patrick announcing their move to adopt a child, Meredith suggests the child would be more fit in a better home and in the process insults Thaddeus. Sybil gets offended and becomes angry with Meredith, than offers a support of love that only a mother could give to her son:

Sybil Stone: [Signing to Thad after Meredith has insulted his being gay] Hey. Hey, you.
[he doesn't look her way, she tosses a fork at his plate to get his attention]

Sybil Stone: I love you. And you are more normal than any other... *****  sitting at this table. OK? OK. I need a fork. 

 

Having grown up in a large family myself, I can relate to some of the family events that show up in this film, not just the controversies, but the choices my siblings and I may have made in the past. But through it all, our parents never stopped loving us.

Upon Meredith spending Christmas with Everett's family, Everett has notions of asking Meredith on Christmas Day to marry him. He wants to give her his grandmother's ring, but Everett's mother refuses. Sybil believes that Meredith is not the right person for her son and that he would be making a huge mistake.

This portion of the film has some unusual twists to it with much humor and a big surprise. If you do decide to watch this film, you will need a box of kleenex at various points throughout this comedy drama, especially at the end.

This film is one of my favorites not only for the unexpected twists and the humor, but the love that they have for each other. The Stone family truly lives out the aspects of being a close family, sticking with each other through thick and thin. And, after all, isn't that what family is all about?