Mon vrai père et moi

This was by no means a great movie, but it was enjoyable.

The production values were low and the performances at times suffered from overacting -- especially by Danny DeVito. But, the film had a little bit of heart, and I couldn't help but smile at times.

Neve Campbell is so beautiful here; I can't understand why she's not more famous. She just radiates and lights up the screen every time she is on here.

Kathy Bates was great, as always, but I found Ron Livingston's performance to be a little stale.

If you're looking for a lighthearted movie to help you waste away a Sunday afternoon, this is it. Just don't expect too much and you won't be that disappointed.

I was looking for a Christa Campbell fix until I could watch her next movie. I wore out last month's Playboy and Scars hasn't arrived. I noticed her in this little comedy and said, what the heck! Unfortunately, I waited about 75 minutes before she appeared for about 60 seconds, not saying a word. Oh, well, the wait was worth it and there was a pretty funny comedy in the meantime.

I have to say that Neve Campbell really surprised me in this film. She was really good. She made me forget all about those Scream and Wild Things.

Ron Livingston was great as the psychologist who finds out that his real parents are carny folk as opposed to the snobs that raised him. Danny DeVito and Kathy bates were hilarious as the parents. I always like Christine Baranski, and she didn't disappoint with her nose high in the air.

Lots of laughs, and you can guess the ending.

Maybe it's somehow unfair that this movie was not distributed in the US (yet?). I have seen much worse movies and comedies that had less fun in them well distributed and promoted. However, I can understand the hesitations of the distributors. 'Relative Strangers' plays in a genre that has already squeezed all the juice, and makes no attempt to be something different.

Yet, the premises are good. What if you are a successful writer of self-control books and you found two weeks before your marriage with gorgeous Neve Campbell that your true parents are not the high-class couple that raised you but Danny DeVitto and Kathy Bates, a popular circus pair of failed clowns, throwing bad jokes and inheriting you nothing but a bunch of hereditary diseases?

Unfortunately, this is more or less where the fun of the movie stops. The rest is so predictable that you could have written the script yourself. Ron Linvingston is as funny as a evening news broadcaster, DeVitto and Campbell do their expected game, and only Kathy Bates is funny and looks comfortable and gorgeous (yes!) in her role, but this is not enough. Casting the stars is not enough for good comedy, you need something more in ideas and craziness which is definitely missing here.

I had the pleasure of seeing this film at a sneak preview in Los Angeles earlier this year and have been waiting to see it's release here in the US. Apparently, it's being released overseas which is a shame as it would seem to go over better in America being so..American. This film was just a lot of fun. Danny DeVito and Kathy Bates play the white-trash birth parents of Ron Livingston, an uptight self help author. His fiancée is played by the incredibly sexy Neve Campbell who I could watch in anything. DeVito and Bates characters are very broad, almost cartoons but by the end of the film you really feel they are real people and the film packs an emotional punch that was really unexpected. Along the way are some hilarious scenes..Bates and DeVito are a great team! I loved the talk show appearance where his parents unexpectedly (of course) show up and he loses it. It seems like so many films have to be about something deep and have a cynical edge nowadays but this film was just fun to watch and left me smiling at the end. The audience I saw it with exploded with laughs frequently through out. I can imagine this film is not for every taste but if you can relax and just enjoy a feel good, fun comedy, I recommend this film highly

Well, you know what you are in for with a movie such as "Relative Strangers". And with that being said, this movie follows the how-to-make-a-comedy script-book page by page. As such, the movie is very generic and predictable.

That being said, I will say that the movie is still enjoyable for what it is. There are some fun situations here and there, and there are some nice enough laughs throughout the movie. And there is just enough awkward situations to make it enjoyable enough to sit through to the end of the movie.

What really saves the movie is the cast. Danny DeVito can be somewhat of an acquired taste, but he did pull this off well enough. Kathy Bates was very well-cast for this movie. I had some reservations about Ron Livingston and Neve Campbell, but they both genuinely surprised me in a good way.

"Relative Strangers" is the type of movie that you watch once, then bag and tag it, most likely never to watch it again. Director Greg Glienna managed to muster but a mediocre comedy here.