SNAPSHOT
David Burke (Sudeikis) is a small-time pot dealer whose clientele includes chefs and soccer moms, but no kids—after all, he has his scruples. So what could go wrong? Plenty. Preferring to keep a low profile for obvious reasons, he learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished when he tries to help out some local teens and winds up getting jumped by a trio of gutter punks. Stealing his stash and his cash, they leave him in major debt to his supplier, Brad (Ed Helms).In order to wipe the slate clean—and maintain a clean bill of health—David must now become a big-time drug smuggler by bringing Brad’s latest shipment in from Mexico. Twisting the arms of his neighbors, cynical stripper Rose (Aniston) and wannabe customer Kenny (Will Poulter), and the tatted-and-pierced streetwise teen Casey (Emma Roberts), he devises a foolproof plan. One fake wife, two pretend kids and a huge, shiny RV later, the “Millers” are headed south of the border for a Fourth of July weekend that is sure to end with a bang. (source: comingsoon.net)
If there is one thing I truly love, it’s a movie that subverts well-loved, much-revered cliches.
And if there is one cliche, one great big glow-in-the-dark cliche, that is ripe for skillyfully conceived and executed subversion, it’s that of the almost-mythical modern nuclear family.
I say “mythical” not because it doesn’t exist, although it is increasingly being supplanted by single-person and “non-conventional” households, but because it doesn’t quite exist in the way everyone would like to think it does.
We all like to think that the “perfect” combination of mum, dad and two kids – one of each sex naturally or the picture isn’t as fairytale-ready as like it to be – is a recipe for a “mom and apple pie” life free of dissension and pain, and wrapped in a lovely big red bow of domestic bliss.
But the reality is that our families, even the working gloriously dysfunctional ones that we all belong to and love no matter their faults, have all sort of quirks and fault lines.
And it is those very cracks in the edifice of the idealised family life that We’re The Millers looks like it is going to exploit with glee.
While it’s not a family satire as such and comes with a Hangover-esque comedy feel to it, I am looking forward to the skewering of the perfect family ideal and praying to the cinematic goods that the movie doesn’t end with a schmaltzy feel good happy ending where everyone learns a much needed lesson.
Draw closer and realise that families, even made up ones are dysfunctional and they are what we make them by all means, but please don’t go all cutesy on me.
We find out if my prayers have been answered when We’re the Millers opens in USA on 9 August 2013 and Australia on 15 August 2013.
Here’s some great character posters for you to enjoy:
