It’s great to see Barbra Streisand back on the big screen; she has always been an actress that I’ve felt should have worked more often.  She was a great musical star and a good comedienne before coming an accomplished director; now she has returned to her comedic roots playing the somewhat neurotic mother of Seth Rogen in The Guilt Trip.  Streisand seems perfectly attuned to the role, and has definite chemistry with her cinematic son, but the film’s script doesn’t let them really cut loose and explore their relationship.  That’s a shame, because this could have been much better than it actually is.

Anne Fletcher’s movie sticks to the formula so closely that it doesn’t have a chance to breathe properly.  I don’t have a problem with the manner in which it is plotted, but rather with the gimmicky situations (the strip club sequence; the steak sequence) that interrupt the movie’s flow and grind the pace to a halt.  After a while The Guilt Trip becomes less a movie than an unfunny two person comedy act.  The movie is amusing at times, but it is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, and it is definitely more dramatic than funny.

The mother-son relationship dynamic is very believable, and there are a score of moments that resonate with realism as the uncomfortable son wonders just why he has invited his mother to take a cross-country trip with him.  Streisand’s character is so full of personality and energy that she just overwhelms Rogen’s character much of the time.  That’s fine, but there just isn’t as much comedy in that fact as there ought to be.

The surprise of the movie for me is Seth Rogen.  I haven’t liked his slobbish persona in many movies, but here he seems like a pretty regular, uptight guy, and there is one scene where I found myself seeing myself on the screen (briefly) in terms of his actions and reactions.  That happens less often than one would think, so I appreciate it when it does.  But the bottom line is that The Guilt Trip is a fairly decent drama rather poorly dressed up as a comedy, but which fails to deliver the laughs that it promises.  And it is as a comedy that it must be judged.  ☆ ☆.  1 January 2013.