Avis Metacritic

Much of Family‘s humor comes from the juxtaposition of Kate and Maddie’s bonding with moments of pitch-black selfishness.

There’s some surprisingly compelling footage, played over the end credits, of real life Juggalos providing testimonials about what their community means to them, and in that a message about understanding the misunderstood.

Enjoyable despite its familiarity.

This charming, shaggy story of embracing oneself to authentically connect with others is peppered with appealing performances from Brian Tyree Henry and Kate McKinnon, and a truly bravura turn by Schilling as a woman frazzled to her wits’ end.

Family succeeds, for the most part, because of and not despite the sheer familiarity of its hoary storyline.

Family is funny in bits and pieces, but so obvious in terms of its eventual direction that it might have been better served by less plot and more clowning around.

Thoroughly good-natured and with a handful of decent jokes (like Kate McKinnon as a vulpine suburban mom), Family would be more interesting if, instead of trying to rewire Kate, it just admitted that her harsh honesty and benign neglect were more beneficial to Maddie than her mother’s anxious hovering.

Appealing on a scene-by-scene basis but generic like its title — it might as well have been called “About a Girl” as a thematic nod to Chris and Paul Weitz’s superb 2002 film — Steiner’s dull comedy lacks the crucial feelings that could have made the suburban aunt-niece tale at its center more memorable.