Movie Review: "People Like Us"

"People Like Us": B-.  Our first impressions of Sam (Chris Pine), a fast-talking East Coast slick salesman, are unfavorable.  He borders on unethical behavior as he tries to convince manufacturing companies to sell their overstock to him.  He constantly works under the gun, and favors taking shortcuts if it means putting a few extra coins in his pocket.  This behavior gets him into trouble not only with his boss but also with the Federal Trade Commission.  Just as the Feds are threatening him with a subpoena, he learns that his father, Jerry Harper, has passed away at the age of 63.  Jerry was a famous record producer who consciously chose to sacrifice being a family man in favor of his career.  Throughout his life, Sam detested his father, but Sam's girlfriend, Hannah (Olivia Wilde), manipulates things at the airport to get them a flight to Los Angeles for the funeral.

Sam's widowed mother, Lillian (Michelle Pfeiffer), is not happy with Sam.  Just as Jerry paid little attention to the family when Sam was growing up, Sam has rarely visited his parents as an adult.  After the funeral, Sam learns through his father's attorney that Jerry has verbally instructed the attorney to pass along to Sam an old shaving kit, which the attorney claims he hasn't opened.  Inside the shaving kit Sam finds $150,000 cash and written instructions from Jerry for Sam to deliver the kit and caboodle to the mother of an eleven year old boy who also lives in LA.  Shortly thereafter, Sam realizes that the mother is his half-sister, whom he never knew existed, and the boy, therefore, is Sam's nephew.  These newly discovered relationships of Sam constitute the Big Secret which Sam looks for the right moment to reveal.

Baberaham Elizabeth Banks plays Frankie, the estranged half-sister.  She, too, looked upon her father (the late Jerry) with disdain.  Her childhood memories of him are mostly bad.  He made no time for her or her mother, who was Jerry's mistress.  Frankie knew that Jerry had a family; she and her mother were merely players in his clandestine life.  Frankie is a single mom herself, an alcoholic who has her hands full with her delinquent (but cute) eleven year old, Josh (Michael Hall D'Addario), while she works a night job in a bar and attends AA meetings.

The circumstances under which Sam and Frankie first meet are not all that convincing, nor is the amount of time that Sam spends alone with Josh, as he takes him under his wing.  Just when will Sam tell Frankie the Big Secret?  Without spoiling the film, I will simply say he keeps it to himself a lot longer than I thought he would.  Is Sam seriously contemplating keeping the inheritance for himself?  Meanwhile, as happens in the movies, Josh's troubles at school seem to be getting better, thanks to the mentoring furnished to him from time to time by Sam.  How many movies have we seen where a smitten guy finds that the quickest way to a single mom's heart is to become a father figure for her kid?  Only here, the hot single mom is the guy's sister!

If you don't buy into the circumstances under which Sam keeps the Big Secret, it's hard to see this movie as anything other than a well acted story with an interesting set-up that doesn't play out in sensible fashion.  By the way, evening admission to the Hopkins Theater is now up to $3.00.  If their policy was value pricing, that would be just about right for "People Like Us."  Of course, I'd be willing to pay three bucks to watch any flick with Michelle Pfeiffer, even if she is on the screen for just a couple of scenes.