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.
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.