The dead giveaway that “The Guilt Trip” would be a bust should have been that the only people in the theater besides my friends and me were above the age of 50.
Joyce Brewster (Barbra Streisand) and Andrew Brewster (Seth Rogen) act as mother and son in this supposedly comedic film. This movie could hardly be in categorized as comedy, for the humor in this movie fell flat and did not hold my interest for more than a few minutes.
The film is an hour and a half movie about a middle-aged man and his mother spending some quality time together, going on adventures for fun. This was ten dollars and 95 boring minutes I would have spent elsewhere on a Friday night.
This movie’s humor is not geared toward high schoolers, which made the jokes not relatable. Streisand, now 70-years-old, did not bring out the humor in this movie. The jokes that she told were dried up and overused.
In the movie, Rogen, an awkward, struggling inventor and salesman, invites his overbearing mother, Streisand, to travel cross country with him in order to secretly set her up with her old flame, a fire that has long since burnt out. Throughout their trip, they take many unnecessary stops, stopping at random bars, strip clubs and western restaurants for possible entertainment.
Director Anne Fletcher and writer Dan Fogelman came together in hopes of creating a funny movie for all ages, but ended up throwing random scenes together in search of laughs. Fletcher has been known for directing successful movies like “The Proposal”, “27 Dresses” and “Step Up”. Compared to those great movies, “The Guilt Trip” just doesn’t meet the same standards. The scenes were copied from some of the recent popular movies and it made this movie something everyone has already seen before. Fogelman is most known for writing the screenplays of the cartoon movies “Bolt” and “Tangled”, the original story in “Cars 2” and also writing “Crazy, Stupid, Love”. These recent popular movies created high expectations for “The Guilt Trip” that were not met. It was expected that the two successful movie-makers would throw together a more creative and funny movie, but it seems as though they, like many others, may only be in the business for the money.
I admit, I cracked a smile a couple of times throughout the movie, though it contained humor more along the ages of elementary school kids, or anyone above the ages of 50 or 60.
“The Guilt Trip” is not worth your time or money and it would be in your best interest to drive cross country far, far away from the theater.
By ABI BROOKS
