Straight A's - Jede Familie hat ein schwarzes Schaf

I rather enjoyed this film. It's too bad it seems to have been given a half hearted production. The film has so much going for it, but seems to have stopped short of what it would have taken to really make a go of it, namely, cohesion and a really good edit. There were some problems with continuity too. Was Scott gone 9 or 10 years because both were mentioned and it turns out to matter. Mr. Phillippe's Scott seemed to also have had a tattoo that came and went. It's those little things that show a lack of attention that reflect a failure of…what? Talent? Devotion? Funding? I don't know. But the end product is unpolished. In fact it plays better as a series of scenes than as one film. It tells the story of one family, William(Luke Wilson), his wife Katherine(Anna Paquin), and their two young children. The marriage is struggling. They have all the trappings of wealth and status but William is constantly away on business and Katherine is becoming robotic and cold, just going through the motions. The children are responding with eccentric behavior. Charles, for instance, wears a suit and carries a brief case to elementary school. There is also William's father(Powers Boothe) living nearby who has succumbed to Alzheimer's. But most importantly for this film, there is William's brother, Scott(Ryan Phillippe), who has been missing for some years but shows up one afternoon riding a horse onto the property. This film is classified as a comedy and it is funny, but in the old fashioned comedic method of amusing circumstances rather than manic behavior or convoluted plots. The comedic circumstances all center around the character of the prodigal brother, Scott. He is definitely the cuckoo in the nest of this buttoned down family. He drinks too much, smokes pot and has very little censor. He is utterly charming man, but immature and often inappropriate, especially in his vocabulary. He soon wins over the children and has Katherine struggling with feelings she once had for him. Scott has returned home at the request, he insists, of his dead mother who tells him he is needed. And except for total lack of conformity and his habit of lighting up a joint and/or a cigarette constantly as well as trying to drink the drink cabinet dry, he's not a bad house guest. However that's not how Katherine sees it, he's rather more spontaneous than she can tolerate. Yet we see that people are like moths to his flame, and Katherine is no more immune than her children. I found the acting really well done, not surprising given the cast, but the supporting cast doesn't lag behind either. (How they managed to cast a little girl who looks so much like she could be Anna Paquin's daughter I don't know.) The musical score added much to the atmosphere. I'm a big fan of well done musical scores. I've mentioned this is funny; I laughed out loud several times while watching it. I enjoyed this film. It's been a long time since I saw Ryan Phillippe act with child actors and I want to point out that he does it singularly well. Overall his portrayal of Scott drives the whole film. But I'd have liked this effort to be more than a direct to video pass off. It seems a betrayal of all the work and talent that went into it. And last but not least the ending is a really hackneyed cliché. Hate that.

Although it is classified as a "comedy" there is absolutely nothing funny in this movie. That being said, I enjoyed every minute of it. Ryan Phillipe is really good in this movie and so is the kid. The rest of the characters are somewhat irrelevant in my opinion. Without giving too much away, the ending where they're just sitting the two are sitting enjoying eachtohers company reminds me of my wife and I and really was a great moment. I recommend this movie to everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I watched this film on netflix and to be honest I am kind of used to watching crappy movies on there but today was definitely a pleasant surprise.

This will be brief. The cast,with many quality proved works behind them can't be blamed for what is obviously a poorly directed, badly written and horrendously edited hack-job. The stunted and forced direction, film- school camera angles and poorly written dialogue are just too much to overcome for even this group of fine actors.

This had to be agony for the actors to sit through if there actually was a premiere, and the wasted storyline that could have been compelling or at the very least engaging was finished off by a lazy cable-network soundtrack and bad staging.

This could have been a very nice story. If this director ever gets another chance to do something like this he need to watch the last Hallmark Hall-of-Fame productions... they do this infinitely better.

"Straight A's" is a simple family drama. The mysterious Uncle Scott (Ryan Phillippe) and his drug use and slacker attitude is a bad influence on the Henderson kids. Uptight Katherine (Anna Paquin) just wants him out of the house and wants her distant husband William (Luke Wilson) back home. The kids are pretty separate from all of this - they have their own story line where Scott shows them that "there's more to life than getting straight A's."

"He loves her; she loves his brother" - the tag line from the film's poster suggests that it's a comedy. Because that's just how love triangles usually play out. But here they went for drama. The drama of a marriage in trouble, the drama of strained family relations and the drama of an immature adult teaching life lessons to children. These are three different themes and stories, and the amateur editing didn't do them any favours. The parts don't add up to a greater whole even though they look like they could be fairly compelling.

The main problem as others have alluded to is that it just interesting enough. The actors are all good. Ryan Phillippe in particular is channelling a young Brad Pitt with a Texas accent, a swagger and killer looks to support that swagger. Anna Paquin is way more grown up than we've seen her before - mature with a subdued but strong determination. Unfortunately Luke Wilson is left to fend for himself since all his scenes are removed from the Southern family dynamic.

The kids are really just used as filler (and for some reason the title as well) probably to help ground the adult drama - to give their relationship dynamics more substance. But I would like to think that if the character of Scott was solidified a bit more he could have done that himself. Scott is a little strange - sees the image of his dead mother, and it's hard to say what his intentions are with Katherine. At least he's sweet and funny when he's with the kids.

"Straight A's" has some structure and pacing issues - it moves way too slowly at times. I also think that's what holds the story back. The family definitely has things to say about family dynamics; some of which get dragged out with lack of interest, some of which are a little strange but also a little bit intriguing, and some of which have been told before but there isn't much harm in telling them again. The film is a little too staid to appeal to many people but those who like the Texas/Louisiana culture with some country twang to their family drama should like it a lot.

You will not really get the whole story of this film by its title, nor by the poster. It was good that I saw this film without any idea what this was all about, not even what genre it was. I thought it was a romantic comedy. It was not exactly one. Once the film started, I thought I would not like it. But as it went along, I was pulled in, all the way to its end. This is one good little film that deserves more attention.

Put simply, the story of "Straight As" is about how the lives of the Henderson family was affected when long-estranged Scott (Ryan Philippe) makes a surprise return, supposedly because their late mother had convinced him to. His sister-in-law Katherine (Anna Paquin) is flustered by Scott's unwelcome visit right when his brother William (Luke Wilson) was out of town on business. But it was with his nephew Charles and niece Gracie that Scott made his biggest connections. However, with his foul language, cigarettes and drugs, will Scott ever be welcomed back by the family he left more than ten years ago?

The actors of this film worked very well. I loved that the acting in this film is very understated and restrained There were no big hyper- dramatic scenes as family melodrama are mostly prone to having.

I have not seen Ryan Philippe act in a lead role for a long time. His career had never really recovered since he and Reese Witherspoon broke up. He was outside his usual zone playing the black sheep of the family. I believed he played the multiple levels of his complex character very well.

I had not seen Anna Paquin act in a straight dramatic role ever since she won the Oscar as a precocious child in "The Piano"! It was a welcome break from notable recent roles with supernatural powers. I liked her subtle attack on a role which could have been a showcase of histrionics in a lesser actress.

Luke Wilson's role was rather right up his old alley, but it was good to see him in a dramatic role. The actors who played the two kids, Riley Thomas Stewart and Ursula Parker, were both very cute, natural and moving. Powers Boothe, who played the Henderson patriarch, also had his shining moments.

I liked how the whole story unfolded. Yes, the story elements were all soap opera staples, but they way they were woven together by director James Cox was interesting and involving. The musical score and the songs were all very emotionally apt to the scenes they accompanied. The cinematographer liked to play with lights and glare, which were good. As a whole, the unheralded film was a pleasant surprise which more people should know about. 7/10.