Film Review with Robert Mann – The Joneses

24th April 2010

The Joneses ***

It has been estimated that the average person sees 20,000 adverts in a single year. Marketing is a key part of everyday life that, try as you might, cannot be avoided, with advertising appearing pretty much everywhere – on television, in cinemas, in magazines and newspapers, on buses and bus stops, on bilboards, and the list goes on. All this, however, is just the marketing we are actually aware of. Companies will go to great lengths to ensure that we buy their products, with undercover – or stealth – marketing being quite popular with companies determined to get hands on our cash. This usually involves the company paying an actor to use a certain product openly in an area where the target cosumers congreate. Such is the central theme of The Joneses, a satirical comedy based around a seemingly perfect American family who are not as they appear – they aren’t just living the American Dream, they are selling it. Will you be keeping up with The Joneses?

Kate Jones (Demi Moore) and her husband Steve (David Duchovny) are a seemingly perfect couple who, along with their equally blemish-free teenagers Jenn (Amber Heard) and Mick (Ben Hollingsworth), move into a beautiful house in a well-to-do community. Everything about the Joneses is fresh, exciting and up-to-the-minute, and they quickly charm their new neighbours. But the Joneses are not a family. They work for a stealth marketing organisation, Kate is Steve’s boss, and their job is to make the public want the things they’ve got. From clothes and food to golf clubs and beauty products, The Joneses are walking, talking advertisements for the lot. Everything goes according to plan until Steve begins to develop real feelings for Kate – and to question their life of luxurious deception…

There is something extremely ironic about The Joneses. Filmmakers often receive a lot of flack for the inclusion of product placement in their films yet here, in a film that satirises consumerism and everything that comes with it, products (at least some, if not all of which are real – in the first few minutes there is a HTC phone which I saw an advert for on a bus stop only a few days ago) are flaunted left, right and centre. For all we know, this film itself could a piece of stealth marketing, one that is masquerading as satirical commentary. The products may well be intended as satire but if the products are very much real then so may the plugs they receive. When the film is attempting satire, it presents a pretty interesting picture and says quite a few things about conformity and the need to fit in the things we all want but don’t really need. However, the film is only semi-successful in this regard. First time writer/director Derrick Borte does quite well in examining the surface of the issues he is exploring but simply does not dig enough, with the true potential of the concept simply not being exploited and many of the issues not being examined with enough conviction. The greater problem is that the satire too often makes way for the other elements of the storyline, especially Steve’s disenchantment with his life, which often seems to have priority over the satire and isn’t nearly as interesting. When the film is dealing with family drama it occasionally verges on soap opera territory with events surrounding the film’s central characters sometimes at odds with the satirical aspirations of the storyline, and the result is a film that is interesting but is never as much so as it has the potential to be. Additionally, while the film is subtly humourous on occasions, it fails to provide any laugh out loud moments or any particular funny observations – a problem considering this is part comedy after all and disappointing considering the distinct potential of the concept. Consequently, while this film may make you think it may not make you laugh, particularly if you are not very susceptible to more subtle humour. Despite many of the flaws in the writing and execution department the film is at least carried by two very strong leading performances from Demi Moore and David Duchovny, who share a chemistry that is very believable and each work well on their own too, with Duchovy in particular having charisma to spare. Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth are somewhat underwhelming by comparison but do a competent job nonetheless. Overall, The Joneses manages to be a semi-interesting satire that will certainly make you think about the nature of products and how they are sold to us but so much more really could have been made of it all. So, to answer the question, you may not be all that bothered about keeping up with The Joneses.

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Review by Robert Mann BA (Hons)

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