‘Chosen Family’ Review – Unbalanced Comedy Spoils Directorial Debut

What’s that saying? If no one will pay you to do it…

Well, in the spirit of DIY, actress Heather Graham takes that message to heart as she wrote, directed, and stars in her new comedy, Chosen Family. Graham plays Ann, a 30-something Yoga instructor with a history of bad relationships, and an absolutely insufferable family to go along with it. This is all aided by a terrible inability to say no, and a desire to always help everyone fix their own problems. Ann’s only comfort comes from her group of friends.

Her sister Clio (an underwhelming Julia Stiles) has just gotten out of rehab again and is staying with Ann’s overbearing parents. Her father is a religious nut who can’t go a few sentences without praying and her mother is a doting and naive older lady with dreams of being a singer, although she lacks any real talent. Her father wants her to get back into the church and date a young man who is still a virgin. Her mom wants her to help her with her music career to help her finally do something with her life, and her sister wants her to help her get off drugs, although she doesn’t seem to want to.

While each character in the film is razor thin on development and is merely the archetype of the people they embody, there are some outright funny moments between them. They each do a good enough job of making you dislike them while having some pretty outlandish moments. The main flaw here is a lot of the editing is inconsistent. The film abruptly cuts in between some moments that it really shouldn’t and gives the impression that there wasn’t enough coverage in certain scenes, so they had to chop together whatever they had.

This is pretty noticeable when we’re trying to get a dramatic scene between Ann and Clio and its emotional beats are so erratic, it’s difficult to take anything happening in that scene seriously. Along with the family, the group of friends also have some pretty funny moments. Thomas Lennon and Odessa Rae play married couple Max and Frances, who are struggling restaurateurs, and there is also Roz (Andrea Savage), the wisecracking best friend who leads Ann’s intervention of getting away from bad boyfriends. The group of friends is charming, they each have little moments that will make you chuckle, but nothing that really saves the film.

The story revolves around Ann looking to start a real relationship and make something of her career as a yoga instructor. Her friends set her up with single, divorced dad Steve (John Brotherton) and the two instantly hit it off. Their relationship reaches a snag when Steve’s daughter shows her over-the-top clinginess of her father and his constant capitulation to her whims. This bit makes for some solid gags with Ann and Lily (Ella Grace Helton) competing for his attention. There is also a great moment amongst the friend group that is instantly relatable when someone walks out of the room and all your friends huddle around and talk about them. 

Chosen Family desperately wants to be both a romantic blockbuster and a Hallmark movie. Unfortunately, it’s not doing enough in either direction to satisfy one or the other. While there are some laughs to be had, they belonged in an overall stronger film, where the performances didn’t feel so phoned in, and there was more of a story to get behind. The overall message of taking care of yourself and cutting out toxic people in your life, even if they are family, is clear and important, but painfully predictable. Sadly, not everyone knocks it out of the park on their first try, but if Graham’s got another one in her, we wouldn’t be upset if she gave it another swing.

Chosen Family is currently playing in select theaters and is available On Demand courtesy of Brainstorm Media.