The film focuses on the relationship between Andrew, or Andy, Brewster (Seth Rogen, of “50/50,” “Kung Fu Panda 2,” “Paul,” “The Green Hornet,” and “Monsters vs. Aliens”), a romantically stalled 30-something who, while working at the Environmental Protection Agency, comes up with his own idea for an eco-friendly cleaning fluid, and his loving-but-overbearing mother Joyce (Barbra Streisand, of “Little Fockers”), widowed years ago, when Andy was 8. Andy, an organic chemist, is shy and introverted; Joyce is energetic, friendly, and not above telling off a man who attempts to ask her out by suggesting they hike together. Exercise? Blergh.
But Andy can tell Joyce is lonely, especially after she spills to him about a long-lost love. Inspired by her story and the years Joyce has spent devoting her life to taking care of him, Andy reaches out to the man and figures out where he lives, integrating him into a road trip Andy is taking across the country to pitch his Scioclean invention to various wholesalers. He invites Joyce along, but doesn’t tell her about that particular pit stop—instead, it’s presented as a way for the mother and son, who live on opposite ends of the country in New Jersey and Los Angeles, respectively, to spend some time together.
And spend time together they do, from motel rooms to restaurants to various other watering holes where Andy and Joyce can sit together and hash out their problems. He blames his self-consciousness on her excessive mothering (it’s suggested the family is Jewish, but never confirmed); she defends herself with countering that they only have each other and lays the guilt on thick. When will Joyce and Andy really see each other as individuals, as the people they are instead of the parent and child stuck in their memories? As much as “The Guilt Trip” is about growing together, it’s also about growing up—for both parties.
The stalling point of “The Guilt Trip,” though, is that the film feels like a series of typical fights with typical results, and the constant confrontation between mother and son always feels a bit dulled. Andy complains about Joyce’s overwhelming personality, but she’s the one going out there and making the sales while he shyly sulks. She says he won’t let her into his life, but she doesn’t really give him a chance to get a word in. Ultimately their problems are ones that the audience will recognize and relate to, but they’re not unique or dramatic.
Screenwriter Dan Fogelman (who also wrote “Cars 2,” “Tangled,” and “Bolt”) keeps things relatively tame and significantly less funny than his previous work, last summer’s romantic comedy “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” The biggest laughs come from Joyce, who in an early scene wakes up in bed, rolls over onto a M&M candy, and eats it, and her later decision to compete to scarf down a 50 oz. steak—which Andy quietly, disgustedly comments is “like eating a poodle.” Scenes when the two are hilarious together are even sparser, but a sequence when a motel manager thinks of them as cougar-and-younger-boyfriend instead of mother-and-son works, as Rogen sputters and stews at the man and Streisand genially goes along with it. Those are validly humorous moments, but are uncommon—”The Guilt Trip” is not the kind of movie that will bust your gut.
That sense of containment transfers to the performances, too; Rogen, usually so bombastic and engaging, seems caged-in here, unexpectedly meek and timid. He’s like a teenager in emotional stasis, but Andy is supposed to be nearing his 30s—would he really still be such a wuss? Streisand is more likeable than she was in the “Meet the Parents” series, but Fogelman and director Anne Fletcher don’t pay enough attention to either Joyce or Andy to make them resonate as characters. They’re not full stereotypes, but they’re not distinguishable or distinctive, either—and so “The Guilt Trip” becomes an inoffensive, but ultimately forgettable, family comedy for the holidays, and nothing more.
