-Amy (Rachel McAdams), Everett's youngest sibling. There are five Stone siblings and Everett is the oldest. Even though she will come around in the end, Amy does some things that make her quiet unlikeable. I was listening to a podcast about this movie and one of the hosts joked that Rachel McAdams wanted to play a character even more despicable than Regina George.
-Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser; this was before she had her arc on Grey's Anatomy and was in the Twilight movies) is the middle child of the Stone siblings. She's probably the only one who doesn't cause any drama and just seems to be there. She is pregnant and has a daughter. Her husband won't show up until late on Christmas, so not until the very end of the movie. I can't remember if they even tell us why he's showing up so late, but I'm guessing they didn't want to add another character with so many already. I just don't know the reason within the confines of the movie. According to Wikipedia, Susannah lives in Chicago, but I also don't remember that being mentioned.
-Elizabeth, Susannah's daughter and the only kid at this family Christmas. I guess they wanted to throw in at least one kid! She's probably eight or nine.
-Thaddeus, or Thad as his family calls him, is the second youngest Stone. He is deaf and his family communicates with him through sign language, but he can also read lips and it seems like he can hear a little bit.
-Patrick, Thad's partner. Yep, Thad is also gay. And Patrick is black, so they put all the diversity into these two characters. These two might be the smartest in the movie because they're the only ones staying at an inn. This family is kind of a lot so that might explain why Susannah's husband doesn't show up until the last minute and I don't know how long Thad and Patrick have been together, but Patrick probably was the one who told Thad they would be staying at an inn whenever they visited. Smart move.
-Ben (Luke Wilson) is the second oldest Stone. He's the last to arrive (not counting Susannah's husband and I just realized I don't even know his name) and he's very chill. Let's just say he lives up to his surname. He lives in San Francisco where he works as a film editor.
Everyone is at the house (besides Ben) before Everett and Meredith arrive. Amy is the only one who's already met Meredith and she tells her family she hates her and how "phony" and "uptight" she is. Apparently she took her out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and talked the entire time. She tells them about how when she's nervous she has this nervous tic where she clears her throat several times. Before this scene, while in the car on the way to the house, Meredith had been clearing her throat.
While I don't think she's a bad person, Meredith comes off as cold and aloof. Look, I know not everybody has a bubbly personality and doesn't always make the best first impression; I count myself as one of those people, but Meredith is not impressing any of her boyfriend's family members as they're all watching from the window as Kelly goes out to greet them. Everett gets out of the car first and Meredith waits for him to go around the car and open the door for her. Good Lord, you're a successful businesswoman, open your own damn door! But I think this is the first moment showing that Meredith is a bit on the old-fashioned side. Then, as if that's not awkward enough, Kelly tries to embrace both of them, she ducks out of the hug and shakes his hand instead. I can kind of side her with this; I don't like hugging people I just met either, but the way she gets out of the hug just makes it worse.
When she and Everett are unpacking in one of the bedrooms, she tells him she doesn't want to be sleeping in the same bed as him in his parents' house. Obviously they don't care since they're the ones who gave them that bedroom. It would be one thing if there were plenty of bedrooms, but with all those people in the house, all the bedrooms are taken. She is given the bedroom in the attic which was supposed to be Amy's room and now she (Amy) will have to sleep on the couch. She's not very happy and I don't blame her; I would be pretty ticked off too, especially since Meredith already had a perfectly fine bedroom to sleep in. I think when you're meeting your boyfriend's family for the first time, it's just best to go with the flow and not make any waves.
Her sister calls her and she talks to her in private, telling her that everyone hates her and how she's "being herself." Heh, I'm guessing her sister knows everyone hates her because she was "being herself".
Elizabeth, the young girl, had commented on how much she liked Meredith's shoes earlier and before Meredith's sister called, she, Sybil, and Amy had been helping Meredith get her room ready, but left when Meredith took the call. Elizabeth had taken a pair of shoes and when Meredith goes down to the kitchen, she sees she had broken off one of the heels. Now this is when Susannah (who had Elizabeth in her lap, so she clearly saw what happened) should have offered to replace them (actually, she should have told her daughter not to touch them in the first place!), but instead she just says they can glue the heel back on, but Meredith just takes the shoes and goes to take them back upstairs. By this time Ben has arrived and tells her not to "diddy-daddle" because they're "all going to be down here talking about you." Even though he's joking, this makes her super uncomfortable and self-conscious.
After dinner, while Sybil is doing dishes, Everett comes into the kitchen and tells her he wants to ask her something. She knows what he wants to ask her and tells him, "now is not the time."
Later, when Sybil and Kelly are getting ready for bed, we find out what Everett wanted to ask her earlier when she tells her husband that she knows Everett wants to ask for her mother's wedding ring to propose to Meredith. Get it? It's called The Family Stone because Stone is the surname of the family AND the ring is a family heirloom, hence "the family stone."
The next morning, Meredith wakes up before Everett (bad call wanting to sleep in a separate room; at least if she were still in the same room as him she would know he wasn't up yet!) and is downstairs in the kitchen with Sybil and Amy. Sybil tells Amy that they got a card from the Stevensons. We find out they have a son named Brad who Sybil reminds her daughter, "is still in town and still available." She then proceeds to tell Meredith that Amy lost her virginity to Brad. I'm not sure why she thinks that's any of Meredith's business!
Sybil leaves the kitchen and Meredith apologizes to Amy for having to sleep on the couch and suggests they could take turns. That just seems very inconvenient. Amy just has a snide comeback for her and Meredith decides she's just going to get a room at the same inn where Thad and Patrick are staying at so Amy can have her room back. We find out she used having a bad back as an excuse, but nobody believes her. We also find out that her sister, Julie (Claire Danes), will be joining her, for moral support, I guess.
Everett talks to his mom again about the ring and tells her, "This is the woman I'm going to marry." She clarifies, "We're talking about Meredith, right?", ha! He reminds her that she told him that when he met the woman he knew he was going to marry to come to her because she "wanted that woman to wear [Sybil's] mother's wedding ring." He wants to propose to Meredith tomorrow, which is Christmas. She simply tells him, "No" and when he tells her, "You promised," she replies, "Tough sh*t."
Meredith has returned from checking in at the inn and is in the kitchen with Patrick when Sybil comes in and gets needlessly angry because somebody had taken the pot of coffee without making more and apparently it's a rule that whoever takes the last cup of coffee needs to make more. Well, the audience sees Meredith at the sink washing out the pot before Sybil does. Gee, Sybil, maybe not everybody knows your rule. Then Sybil gets pissed again when she sees all these ingredients are on her desk (which is in the kitchen) and Patrick tells her Meredith is making breakfast for them tomorrow. I feel like Patrick and Susannah have been the only nice ones to Meredith. I guess Kelly hasn't been too awful to her. And yes, I'm not including her own boyfriend in that list. Meredith tells her she's making strata because it's a family tradition for her and her sister.
While Meredith and Patrick are working on the strata, Susannah comes in and asks them if they've seen her mom and Patrick tells her she's upstairs taking a nap. This is the first sign you know something might be wrong when Susannah lies next to her mother in bed and Sybil rolls over and asks her, "Who else knows?" We find out that she used to have cancer and it has come back. So now I can kind of forgive her for being little snappy towards Meredith. Ben knows about it and his dad confirms "it's not good" and that they only found out a couple weeks ago and she wanted to wait until after Christmas to tell them. It seems as though all the Stone children know about their mom except for Amy. When she sees Ben embracing their mom for a long time, she wants to know what's going on, but nobody answers her.
Since Everett and Thad had to run errands in town, they're going to meet Julie at the bus station. It seems weird that her own sister isn't meeting her. I would understand if Julie had met Everett, but they've never met before. Again, this is done for the plot of the movie. We can't have Meredith there because Everett is going to...gasp....fall in love with Julie. The way it's framed when he first sees her, you know it's love at first sight. And this is the reason why we don't need Claire Danes in this movie. What is this, the dude version of While You Were Sleeping where he's in a relationship with one sister, but ends up falling for the other sister?
She meets the rest of the family and they all love her, probably because she comes off natural and likable. When the sisters have a private moment, Sybil tells Kelly that Julie would be perfect for Ben. I have to feel bad for Meredith in that moment. So her sister is good enough for one of their sons, but she isn't good enough for their other son.
Julie speaks up and tries to apologize for her sister, but Sybil interrupts her and throws a fork at Thad's plate to get his attention. He's looking down dejected. She signs to him that she loves him and that he is more normal than anyone else at this table. I get she's trying to make him feel better, but it feels like she's being a bit patronizing. I just get the feeling that he's the favorite child because he's gay AND deaf and she constantly has to remind him or something. Although she does think Everett is amazing, so he could be in her running for her favorite child.
At the bar, Meredith unleashes all her pent up frustration to Ben about his family (mainly Amy). He tells her to "stop trying" and that she must be "exhausted." After getting a few drinks in her, she loosens up and dances to her favorite song, "Right Back Where We Started From" by Maxine Nightingale. Two guys who Ben knows come in and when he introduces one of them to Meredith as Brad Stevenson, she recognizes his name as the guy Amy lost her virginity to and invites him over for Christmas breakfast tomorrow.
Meanwhile, Everett wants to go looking for Meredith and Julie tells him she' coming with him. They check the inn first, but she's not there. They walk around downtown, talking and bonding. The movie is trying to show us they seem to have bonded on this deep, emotional level, ugh. When he takes her back to the inn he pretty much asks her out on a date, asking her if she wants to get some coffee. Like, dude, what are you doing? You're still dating her sister. They're just trying too hard to make them a couple. As Regina George would say, "Stop trying to make fetch happen; it's not going to happen!"
The next morning Meredith wakes up and discovers she's in Ben's bed. He's in the en suit shower (is there more than one bedroom with en suit showers in this house?) so she's the only one in the bed when Kelly knocks on the door. He knocks a few times, freaking Meredith out because she doesn't know what to do. She's shuffling around and grabs her shirt from the night before (she's wearing a tank top and has the bedspread covering her). When he opens the door, he sees Meredith in the bed, clutching her shirt and looking away with her eyes squeezed shut. He seems just as embarrassed as her and quickly leaves.
Meanwhile, Ben has come out of the shower in a towel and Meredith slaps him and says, "How dare you!" He tries to tell her something, but she's dressed and it looks like she's going to leave, but when she walks downstairs by the front door Everett sees her and demand to know where she's been and she tells him she just arrived.
She hears Julie crying in the bathroom (yes, she's crying because she can't get the ring off) and goes in to check on her and asks her what's going on. Julie holds up her hand with the ring on it and tells her, "It's your wedding ring." Meredith is shocked because she had no idea Everett was planning to propose. When asked why she's wearing her wedding ring, Julie tells her he wanted to see it on her and Meredith has a very good question: "Why did he wants to see it on you?" (Maybe that's a better question to ask Everett!) Julie changes the subject by asking her sister where she was last night and Meredith tells her she can't tell her and looks guilty and Julie quickly figures out what she means.
Everett wants to talk to Meredith and thinking he's going to pop the question, she keeps brushing him off and when he keeps insisting to talk to her, she yells, "No, I will not marry you!" in front of everyone. She lowers her voices and tells him she can't marry him and he replies, "I didn't ask you." She then feels really stupid and tells everyone that this is what they all wanted, to see her humiliated and she goes on a tirade and ends up announcing to everyone she slept with Ben. Ben tells her they did not sleep together and she's had enough humiliation that she runs into the kitchen. Ben tells the others that he slept on the floor while Meredith slept in his bed.
The ring has finally slid off Julie's figures and she gives it to Elizabeth to give to Everett and tells her to say goodbye for her, but of course he goes running after her.
The last scene of the movie is one year later when everyone has gathered at the house for Christmas again. This time Sybil is no longer with them, but I'm sure she's smiling down at them because now all her three single children have somebody: Ben is with Meredith, Everett is with Julie, and Amy and Brad are now together. Honestly, out of those three couples, Amy and Brad are the only ones who I think will be in it for the long haul. Ben and Meredith just don't make sense and Everett and Julie should have never happened. I feel like they just threw that in there because they didn't want Everett to be the only one without a partner, but they could have just said he met somebody and was bringing her. It's just too cute that the two sisters found love in the same family.
