The Steps

I was more than surprised by the very good cast and plot of this comedic, poignant yet interesting family drama of a movie. Held my attention with the various personalities "start to finish" as they say. The couple of Christine Lahti and James Brolin was believable and realistic - two people from different backgrounds with past life regrets wanting to start new and with love on their side. Jason Ritter was the biggest surprise; actually a better dramatic actor than his late father and a claim of his own in being a fine actor. Tammy was hysterical (Kate Corbett) and Keith really 'stole' the brother-spotlight with his less than stellar life to date yet his turn around to the importance of family - if not what his mother sacrificed and did for him and his siblings. Very enjoyable and easy to watch and even more so - easy to identify with the feelings of each of the siblings in their finest if not worst moments during the weekend get together. If you THINK this was MEANT to be pure comedy? Then you're not too bright...Look a little deeper at the reality of each and the dynamic of the "good, bad & ugly" in each and every family on this earth.

I watch a ton of these type of movies looking for that gem that nobody has seen or heard of.

I was hoping for laughs, but nothing in this movie made me even giggle.

It's NOT a bad movie, it's just NOT a comedy, unless you have very low standards to make you laugh.

I didn't regret taking the time to watch it, it's basically a story of two very dysfunctional families coming together as one, at a remote location in Canada.

it's somewhat interesting, it's OK, I'll never recommend to people, but I'm not upset I watched it.

It's different, I can say that, I have never watched a story like this before.

Don't watch this unless you really have some time to burn, as I watch this it has a rating of 8.0, this is obviously a rating based on people involved with the film, there is no way this film is anywhere near an 8....

but like I said, not bad...but I didn't even get near a giggle, it is NOT funny, in my opinion.

It IS however well acted, well written, Well directed, overall well done, I have nothing else bad to say other than it's not a comedy, it's a dramedy, that is somewhat amusing...but nonetheless an interesting, original, somewhat heartwarming story...

The plot of the movie sounded like it could have real potential to be a great comedy. Plus there was a reasonable cast. However...the movie quickly degenerated into a dialogue rife with f-bombs and other filth that is getting more irritating with each movie. Like most "comedy/dramas" the comedy is unfortunately only sporadic and tries to go for cheap laughs with vulgarity instead of crisp writing. On top of this, there is absolutely no way that a social worker would ever trust this mess of a family with a precious little child. This is an unfortunate mess of bad writing propped up by high reviews that are definitely unwarranted and cheapen the integrity of IMDB.

So, it started off OK. And I mean just OK. I liked where the characters were going. But then, it got to a situation where BULLYING and ASSAULT was involved. AND allowed by BOTH parents no less. As well as allowed by the family members. It's not acceptable. And not funny.

The acting was decent. Jason Ritter was pretty good. I liked Christine Lahti. Halfway through the movie, they were the stand outs for me.

After the halfway mark, the movie got even worse and made me regret thinking there was hope. Maybe the best thing about the movie was that amazing house they filmed in and the scenery / location.

This movie shot for more than it could handle, in my opinion. It looks like it was intended to be a dysfunctional family comedy like The Family Stone or many other "homecoming" style movies about holidays or meeting the new spouse or whatnot -- there are many movies in this category.

But the overall tone of the movie is less comedy than of a kind of hollow absurdity. The actors appear to have been told to inhabit the script as if it were a Chekhov play. As if the inherently ridiculous things that were happening could be played straight without real- world consequences or effective symbolism.

In a comedy, with a sufficiently comedic tone, those ridiculous moments could be forgiven as just being ridiculous, and you can laugh at the absurdity of it along with (or at) the characters. But they instead try and play those moments off as just that much more extreme moments of personal humiliation that have driven their characters' failures. And instead of exploring those particular ideas, the narrative plods right along as if it were a comedy, almost completely ignoring these moments for the rest of the movie. And the characters tend to drag us down along with them. It gets difficult to watch sometimes because of this awkwardness. This may have been intentional, I don't know. It's certainly possible to blend these elements and have the result come out really well, and you have to give props to the filmmakers for trying, but it's just not there.

There are some pretty good performances here if you can look past its flaws. Lahti is fabulous, as is Chriqui. Ritter is what you might call serviceable -- he seems to be projecting that same sort of awkward conflict between seriousness and comedy -- but he at least seems to get it, whatever that "it" might be in this case. And although the writing gets a little flimsy and self-satisfied at times, it's mostly pretty entertaining. Just don't expect a whole lot.