Tuesday’s Top Trailer: This Is Where I Leave You

Welcome back to a weekly feature here at Movies with Abe, Tuesday's Top Trailer. One of my favorite parts about going to see movies is the series of trailers that airs beforehand and, more often than not, the trailer is far better than the actual film. Each week, I'll be sharing a trailer I've recently seen. Please chime in with comments on what you think of the trailer and how you think the movie is going to be.

This Is Where I Leave You – Opening September 19, 2014

This trailer has been out for a while now, but I actually got the chance to watch it for the first time at a theatre this past weekend. This ensemble comedy takes four actors who honed their skills on television, all on very different series. Tina Fey was a player on “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock,” and Jason Bateman was the star of the immortal “Arrested Development.” Adam Driver broke out on “Girls,” for which he was nominated for back-to-back Emmy Awards for his prickly performance as Adam, and Corey Stoll was in the first season of “House of Cards” and now stars in “The Strain” and soon on season four of “Homeland.” Bringing the four of them together to play siblings and children of Jane Fonda’s wacky mother suggests plenty of comedy potential, though I’m hoping this is a more serious effort from director Shawn Levy, known for the likes of “The Internship,” “Night of the Museum,” and “Cheaper by the Dozen.” Contrasting that resume is Jonathan Tropper, who wrote the novel on which his screenplay is based, and whose most notable recent credit is the creation of Cinemax’s dark but fantastic series “Banshee.” I think this will be an effective vehicle for Driver, who does a great job playing the fish out of water, while Fey and Bateman have played these same roles many times before. The ensemble cast has many familiar faces, including Rose Byrne, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Abigail Spencer, Timothy Olyphant, and Dax Shepard (all TV faces too). This is set to be this fall’s big comedy, and I think that, at the very worst, it will be pretty funny and generally enjoyable.