Streisand on a Guilt Trip
FILM REVIEW by Don Perlgut. There is not one Yiddish phrase, nor any mention of the word “Jew”, nor are any characters wearing the Star of David around their necks, but at its heart The Guilt Trip is a story about an overbearing, over-concerned and over-communicative Jewish mother, played by Barbra Streisand, and her struggling-to-find-himself adult son (Seth Rogen).
These two Jewish acting stars – Streisand still going strong at age 70 and Rogen one of the new “Jewish brat pack” – appear together in almost every scene.
Joyce Brewster (Streisand) still lives in New Jersey when son Andy (Rogen) flies in from Los Angeles to visit her, as part of a quest to market his special biologically sustainable cleaning fluid that he has invented but is unable to sell.
In a moment of concern, Andy invites his widowed mother to join him on a cross-country trip to visit distributors and outlets – thus the film’s tagline: “3000 miles, eight days, one mother of a road trip”.
But Andy’s real goal is to bring his mother back in contact with her first love, a man now living in San Francisco, and thus re-spark her interest in romance.
After years of frequently playing the romantic Jewish female lead with goyish guys (think of Robert Redford, Kris Kristofferson, Ryan O’Neal, Jeff Bridges and Nick Nolte) her last starring role was in 1996 in The Mirror Has Two Faces.
She played a supporting role as Ben Stiller’s mother (and Dustin Hoffman’s wife) in Meet the Fockers, but now The Guilt Trip brings her back to centre stage.
It’s Streisand’s movie and she milks it for all she can, complete with her New York-inflected Jewish accent, Jewish maternal emotionality and a love of eating – the funniest scene in the film has her character eating more than two kilos of steak at a Texas restaurant.
With such star power, it’s a shame The Guilt Trip does not deliver more humour and entertainment. Director Anne Fletcher specialises in middle-brow romantic comedies (27 Dresses, The Proposal), but is working with an underdeveloped script by Jewish writer Dan Fogelman.
New Jersey-born Fogelman reportedly based the story (originally entitled My Mother’s Curse) on a real-life road trip that he took with his mother Joyce (to whom the film is dedicated).
But real life does not always translate well to the screen, and Rogen – who is one of America’s hottest comic actors – seems strangely subdued on screen, frequently angry with his over-expressive mother but lacking some of his patented hilariously comic riffs.
The Guilt Trip has some other Jewish pedigrees: Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes appears in an early scene playing one of Joyce Brewster’s friends. And all three producers are Jewish: John Goldwyn is a son of the famed Hollywood film producer Samuel Goldwyn, Lorne Michaels is the Israeli-born creator of Saturday Night Live and Evan Goldberg is a frequent comedy partner of Seth Rogen (Superbad, Pineapple Express).
The Guilt Trip is currently screening.
PHOTO of Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand in The Guilt Trip.
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