The trailer for Love the Coopers is here, and it’s time for some mixed emotions. On one hand: great cast! Diane Keaton, John Goodman, Marisa Tomei, Olivia Wilde, Amanda Syfriend, Anthony Mackie, Ed Helms, Jake Lacy, and (they’re really going after me on this one) Alan Arkin and June Squibb as the grandparents. If all these people are in the same movie, it’s gotta be pretty great, right?
Eh, not so fast. The last time Keaton and Seyfriend teamed up for an extended-family comedy, we got The Big Wedding, so an all-star cast only carries so much weight with those two. And it’s also a holiday comedy, which is an even dicier proposition; over the past couple of decades, we’ve seen a sharp increase in the production of Christmas comedies (and there’s an easy explanation: if it becomes a perennial, that’s new revenues every year), and a sharp decrease in the quality of said comedies. On one hand, you’ve got Elf and Bad Santa and Christmas Vacation and The Family Stone (a film that shares producers with this one, a meaningless point the trailer takes great pains to note). On the other, you’ve got Jingle All The Way, Deck the Halls, Fred Claus, Four Christmases, The Perfect Holiday, Trapped in Paradise, Mixed Nuts, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Friday After Next, Christmas with the Kranks, The Holiday, I’ll Be Home For Christmas, the Santa Clause trilogy, Surviving Christmas, and (sorry) Love Actually.
But, y’know, maybe Love the Coopers will be one of the good ones.
Love the Coopers is out November 13.