Love the Coopers Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

Love the Coopers Blu-ray Movie Review

Learn to punctuate.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 8, 2016

It probably will only bother certain grammar enforcers and orthography-punctuation aficionados that Love the Coopers seems to be a declarative sentence rather than the closing to a holiday card (as referenced within the film itself), which really, truly should be offered as Love, the Coopers. It turns out that’s one of the lesser issues afflicting this occasionally amusing film, one which might have been pitched as a kinda sorta reboot of another film which also starred this film’s Diane Keaton, The Family Stone, mixed with other dysfunctional family reunion films which take place around the holiday season. The film also takes a page out of the Love Actually playbook by positing an almost insane number of simultaneously unfolding plot arcs featuring a large and frankly unwieldy cast of characters, while also also trafficking in some quasi-Wes Anderson territory, notably that displayed in The Royal Tenenbaums, by whimsically introducing disconnects between childhood memories and the harsh realities of adulthood. That’s a lot of referents, but unfortunately they’re not the only ones, in an overstuffed but still at times empty feeling screenplay by Steven Rogers (Kate & Leopold) that never seems to know exactly what tone it wants to exploit.

Despite a structural artifice which sees Rags, the family dog (voiced by Steve Martin), narrating the film and filling in at least a few gaping story holes, Love the Coopers simply dumps a passel full of characters on the viewer without providing requisite introductions and often without much if any context. The parental units here are Sam (John Goodman) and Charlotte Cooper (Diane Keaton), long married spouses who have nonetheless decided to call it quits after one last Christmas together with their kids and extended family (none of whom know about the upcoming split). The Coopers are parents to son Hank (Ed Helms), a hapless shlub who’s on the verge of divorce himself and who can’t even hold down a steady job as a photographer at the local mall. There’s also daughter Eleanor (Olivia Wilde), a more intellectual type who has forsaken romance after heartbreak. On the extended side of things there’s also Grandpa Bucky (Alan Arkin) and Charlotte’s sister Emma (Marisa Tomei), an unhappy middle aged woman who is also a shoplifter. But, wait, you also get—Aunt Fishy (June Squibb), an addled elder whose momentary and tangential flirting with reality of course dovetails perfectly with the Coopers’ marital frictions; Ruby (Amanda Seyfried), a young waitress who has caught Bucky’s eye in a kind of pseudo-romantic way; Joe Bailey (Jake Lacy), a stand up guy and soon to be deployed soldier who meets cute with Eleanor and who agrees to pretend to be her boyfriend for the family reunion; and Officer Williams (Anthony Mackie), the cop who arrests Emma and who in one of the film’s silliest conceits ends up opening up to her about his lifetime as a closeted gay man.

Even this lengthy list doesn’t include everyone wandering in and out of various vignettes, including a gaggle of Cooper grandchildren. Part of the problem with Love the Coopers is how it segues almost willy nilly between all of these folks, simply plopping down a new person in a new situation at the drop of a hat, an issue which is further exacerbated by the screenplay’s tendency to lapse into fantasy elements without any warning whatsoever, only to return to putative “reality” with a veritable “never mind”. It’s obvious the plot machinations are simply assembling pieces to finally present a jigsaw puzzle of sorts once everyone gets together for the Coopers’ Christmas celebration. There’s absolutely no question where any of this is going, and true to form, Love the Coopers gets there pretty much completely as expected.

What’s at least intermittently compelling about this pretty rote entry is how it occasionally defies expectations and actually starts to touch on some of the melancholy various people feel around Christmastime. Keaton is excellent in depicting a sadness blended with nostalgia, an odd combination of emotions which spills out in a couple of angry interchanges with Goodman. And there is some rather good writing on hand in a couple of the scenes between Wilde and Lacy, with both of the characters they play way too smart to fall into traditional rom-com tropes (there’s a great line where Lacy waxes philosophical about the perfect girl, all while staring straight at Wilde, only to end his monologue with, “and you were sitting right next to her”). Unfortunately, those moments are intermittent, leaving the rest of the film to wallow in the kind of sentimentality that tends to sink this kind of peculiar subgenre.

Note: My colleague Brian Orndorf had an even less positive response to Love the Coopers when it was released theatrically. You can read Brian’s assessment here.

Love the Coopers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Love the Coopers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Digitally shot with the Arri Alexa XT, Love the Coopers offers a suitably colorful holiday themed visual presentation, one with nicely resolved snowstorms (always playing out in the backgrounds, of course) and lovely touches like frosty Christmas lights. Fine detail pops quite commendably in close- ups, offering looks at elements like the little flyaway threads on scarves or the pill on not so hideous Christmas sweaters. Kind of unusually for a (putative) comedy, there's some color grading in play, including some slate gray and/or blue tones that add a kind of frigid ambience to certain scenes but which can slightly diminish detail levels at times. Also kind of unusual are some brief moments of CGI, including one scene where Eleanor supposedly shatters after catching her beau with another woman (see screenshot 3). Contrast and black levels are both very good to excellent, and the overall look here is nicely sharp and well defined.

Love the Coopers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Love the Coopers' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track comes fully to life when the ubiquitous source cues papered across the soundtrack play, but there's also decent immersion in scenes that take place in Ruby's restaurant or a mall where the grandkids go to do some last minute Christmas shopping. Ambient environmental sounds creep into discrete channels in several outdoor scenes. Dialogue is presented cleanly and is well prioritized on this problem free track.

Love the Coopers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making The Coopers (1080p; 12:12) is exactly what it sounds like, a standard issue EPK.


• Rags the Dog (1080p; 1:16) is a brief profile of the film's adorable canine character.


• Fun on Set (1080p; 00:54) features interviews with some of the film's kids.


• Music Video by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant (1080p; 3:21)

Love the Coopers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's Christmas turkey and then there's a Christmas turkey, if you catch my drift, and unfortunately Love the Coopers falls at least intermittently into that second category. The sad thing is that there's some occasionally very smart writing at play here, and the performances are all very good despite both underwritten and overwritten characters. Fans of the large and eclectic cast may want to check this out at least as a rental. Technical merits are generally strong for those considering a purchase.