“The Oranges” takes place in a quaint suburban neighborhood on Orange Drive in Orange, New Jersey, where two families have been neighbors and best friends for over twenty-five years. The cast of characters is made up of the Ostroffs: father Terry (Oliver Platt), mother Cathy (Allison Janney) and sexy 24-year-old Nina (Leighton Meester); and the Wallings: David (Hugh Laurie), Paige (Catherine Keener) son Toby (Adam Brody) and daughter Vanessa (Alia Shawkat).
Terry and David go jogging every morning. Terry, the pudgy one, loves gadgets and the way they distract him from his overly controlling wife, and from the sad truth that their only child hasn’t been home for the holidays—or anything else—in five long years. Nina has a rebellious, test-the-limits personality and at first seems bratty and selfish. The more you get to know her over-the-top boundaryless mom, the more you sympathize.
Terry’s best friend David is kind and gentle but looks heavily weighted by sadness. He sleeps downstairs on a couch in a man cave a few nights a week. His unsettled, unhappy, neurotic wife is obsessed with training a group of Christmas carolers to sing perfectly even though it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. Then there’s mopey, chubby, lazy Vanessa. Toby seems normal enough and everyone is glad to see him.
Newly single Nina shows up unannounced on her parents’ doorstep. Everyone is thrilled to have her home—especially mom Cathy who’s determined to make a love match between Nina and Toby.
Then a great big fat obstacle swoops in to toss everyone topsy-turvy. Nina falls for the wrong Walling. She picks the dad, not the son. The first thought is ‘Ew’ but Hugh Laurie plays David so pitch-perfectly there is nothing Humbert Humberty about him. The consequences are of course extreme and unavoidable. As one would expect, everybody freaks out.
Despite the touchy topics the movie is great fun. Janney, Platt and Keener are comic gold. The stunning and seductive Meester known for her role on teen soap, “Gossip Girl” acts with surprising depth. Adam Brody’s part is small but he does fine. Alia Shawkat is dull and miscast.
Screenplay writers Ian Helfer and Jay Reiss, and director Julian Farino did a great job with this tricky, potentially off-putting story by creating realistic characters faced with an awful yet believable situation. It’s an intriguing movie that brings up universal questions about family, friendship, love and happiness. Yes, the story is serious but the film is seriously funny.
Rated R. 92 minutes. “The Oranges” opens Friday, October 5, 2012. Playing at AMC Loews 19th Street East 6, 890 Broadway.