“The Family Tree” (Entertainment One)

An Acorn Instead of an Oak

The new movie “The Family Tree” is one that has a smorgasbord of talent and a smidgen of story. It tells the tale of a dysfunctional family and how it splits apart yet stays together. All of the members of the cast are good but each actor, other than those in the four main roles, have only a sliver of story here and a sliver of story there.

The basic plot concerns Jack and Bunnie Burnett (Dermot Mulroney and Hope Davis). They have been married for several years and have two teenage children, Eric and Kelly (Max Thieriot and Brittany Robertson). Bunnie is unhappy in her marriage and is having an affair with their next door neighbor Simon (Chi McBride).

One day Bunnie has an accident and hits her head which causes her to have amnesia. She remembers her life only up till the time when she and Jack were first married. Now she is once again madly in love with Jack and doesn’t recognize her own two children. This is the basic plot.

Additional subplots are added so that you can watch such actors as Jane Seymour, Rachel Leigh Cook, David Carradine, Christina Hendricks, Evan Handler, Gabrielle Anwar, Bow Wow, Selma Blair and Madeline Zima do their thing. They are all there crowded into a thin story line that is bursting at the seams. It is a classic case of too many cooks in the kitchen.

Davis is especially good in the role of Bunnie but her talent gets crowded out by the mob of other actors trying to make an impression. Her story line is interesting and should have been the central one but there are many, many side branches to this “tree” and all must be given their due.

The movie is rated R for profanity, brief nudity and sexual situations.

If you want a chance to see just about every underutilized actor in Hollywood then watch this film. I don’t know if Director Vivi Freidman had a bunch of “I O U’s” she needed to repay by having people in her movie, but she surely did gather a horde of thespians together.

I scored “The Family Tree” a branched off 4 out of 10.