THE DAYTRIPPERS (57)

Directed by: Greg Mottola

Starring: Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, Anne Meara, Parker Posey

The Pitch: A young wife finds what looks like a love-note from another woman among her husband's things, and drives off to the city - with her parents, sister and sister's boyfriend in tow - to confront him about it.

Theo Sez: Lively but a bit self-conscious, its recurring theme being that Things Aren't Always What They Seem - and, specifically, that people may appear humdrum and "ordinary" but in fact harbour secrets you'd never have imagined (a sweet-looking girl is actually a thief, a middle-aged Regular Guy type is a fugitive from justice). It's a democratic movie, willing to digress from its main "quest" so its heroes can meet people along the way : Schreiber, as a smug pseudo-intellectual who thinks aristocracy is preferable to democracy (and is writing a deeply symbolic novel about a man with the head of a dog), is the closest thing to a bad guy - his problem being, implicitly, that he disdains the real world around him, living in an ivory tower. Trouble is, the film's take on that real world feels forced, the various interruptions more contrived than organic : it lacks the common touch - even as it's (apparently) celebrating people it seems more comfortable with 17th-century Elizabethan poetry. It's no surprise that the preppy college types are more richly-observed than the blue-collar characters ; the whole thing feels like it was made by an English Lit student. Though at least a witty and imaginative one.