Reel Snippet – The Week Of
Summary: Saturday is the big day for couple Sarah Lustig (Allison Strong) and Tyler Cordice (Roland Buck III), but that’s a week away and there’s still a lot to do. Sarah’s father Kenny (Adam Sandler) has taken it upon himself to plan the wedding and everything around it, even though he doesn’t have two dimes to rub together while Tyler’s father Kirby (Chris Rock) has cash to spare. When Kirby is forced to stay with Kenny until the wedding, he finds another big divide: the Lustig family is large (nearly thirty strong) and chaotic, yet loving and synchronized with each other while his own is small, but broken and spiteful. The two continually clash as they do everything in their power to make their children’s big day perfect.
Review: The Week Of, the fourth and possibly last of Sandler’s Netflix movies, is surprisingly inoffensive. There may be some mild stereotypes, but nothing that approaches the insulting caricatures from films past. However, along with being inoffensive, it’s also flat out boring. It’s driven by one joke: large families are crazy. Okay, there’s some little stuff and a running joke about a legless great-uncle, but that’s it.
If you cut out the pointless stuff, the plot you’re left with is barely enough for a short film. It seems to be relying on humor carrying the movie, but… yeah, there’s not a lot of laughs here. It gets really bad with Chris Rock who just looks like he doesn’t want to be there. He’s not bringing anything close to his A-game or even his F-game. Lord, do I miss his role in Dogma…
What makes this especially tragic is that there are a few moments, especially towards the end. There’s an especially touching moment when Sandler and his on-screen daughter share a tearful conversation that really grabs at your heart. It makes me feel that Sandler wanted to make this as a tribute to his family, which is touching enough, but the movie’s too long and a lot of jokes have set-up, but no punchlines (the ones that do can be pretty funny). I don’t see the average viewer getting anything out of this except for ennui, so while it’s harmless, you’ll also find yourself forgetting it right after you saw it.
Fun Tidbit: Numerous members of Adam Sandler’s actual family are featured in this film, including his nephew Jared, his wife Jackie, and his daughter Sadie. While they have been in movies with Adam before, them being together like this reinforces the idea that this was Sandler’s tribute to his family or at least a way of working through some of his worries about the future of his family and his children growing up.
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