The Guilt Trip

Mama don't let your boys grow up to be cowboys or better yet organic chemist. In this fun tale you see Andy Brewster (Seth Rogen) is on a mission to sell his discovered organic cleaning product and find a distributor. In a caring move he invites his mother Joyce Brewster (Barbra Streisand) to come along for the eight day cross country trip. Most movies feature two guys or girls in a crazy road trip but never a mother and son. Freud was right, we all have mother issues and Andy finally deals with his overbearing mother as he sets out to discover his own identity. This movie is fun, touching, and is above the bond between mother and son. In the preview I saw I took my own mother and she enjoyed it. In a special live simulcast with Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen they took questions about the Road Trip. According to Streisand, she was pursued by director Ann Fletcher for the role. It was not until she read the script out loud with her own son that she fell in love with the role. Streisand did a phenomenal job and you get the feeling that the role is way below her pay grade. They did accommodate all her request. All the scenes were shot within forty five minutes of her house in Malibu, California and she did not even have to drive. According to the pop diva, she has not driven for over a decade. She was also asked if she would ever like to take a road trip with someone and she said Marlon Brando. She did take a day trip with him once to check out the desert wild flowers once and had fun. When asked if Babs had any resemblance with his real life mother, Rogen said that they are both strong Jewish women but that his mother resembled more a past character that Streisand played in Meet the Fockers. His mother is a Jewish hippie type of woman. The Guilt Trip opens December 19, perfect for the holiday season and a fun tale of love, joy, and celebrating life. In the end it will make you appreciate your mother and the characters discovered that they were more alike than different.

"You want to drive cross-country in a car with me?" Joyce Brewster (Barbra Streisand)

Trust me –you don't want to take this trip. The problem with The Guilt Trip is that most of the lame comedy takes place in a subcompact car with two not very interesting characters, a Jewish mother, Joyce (Streisand), and her son, Andrew (Seth Rogen). You will want to get out as soon as you can, and you will feel guilt for wasting 95 minutes.

Not that more of that clichéd Jewish guilt wouldn't have been welcomed after the first act's slow setup (Andy asking mom to join him on a trip out West). Not even those stops along the way would relieve your boredom, given the pedestrian set pieces in a strip bar, a steak house, and a casino, among other seemingly random choices except that inventor Andrew visits those cities to hawk his edible cleaning product.

You can amuse yourself by counting the number of product placements ("They know me at The Gap!"), some from K Mart, Costco, Budget Rental Cars, and other businesses. For those companies, their products come off very well from Andrew's tepid pitch. Only when he finds his selling voice, does the film come alive and Rogen awakens from a sleepy first hour for him.

Making comedies is a Las Vegas gamble: Witness the uneven but far more amusing This is 40, a Judd Apatow production that at least tries to be witty about social issues for aging youngsters. The Guilt Trip tries one bit—the overbearing Jewish mother and wimpy son—and doesn't get it right (Whatever happened to that Oriental girl?").

Now I'm feeling guilty.

While "The Guilt Trip" is not the type of comedy that will have you spilling your drink from laughing so hard, this is a movie not to miss out on. Why? Well, because it was a great story and the movie was nicely told.

The story is about Andrew Brewster (played by Seth Rogen) who travels across the USA with his mother Joyce Brewster (played by Barbra Streisand). Andrew has invented a fabulous cleaning product and is struggling to get companies interested. Their cross-country roadtrip gives them plenty of opportunities to get to spend time with one another in various situations.

"The Guilt Trip" is really a beautiful movie, because Seth Rogen and Barbra Steisand really play their characters so well, and the writers did a wonderful job in fleshing out and detailing the characters. The script is well written and there is a great sense of wholeness to the story.

I was surprised by "The Guilt Trip", because I hadn't at all expected this outcome from it, especially not with Seth Rogen being in one of the leads. I am not saying that I have anything against him, but his movies tend to be rather generic and following the same mold of how to make a comedy over and over. But "The Guilt Trip" surprised on many levels, and it was a great pleasure to sit down and watch it.

This is the type of movie that draws you in and makes you care and have an interest in the characters, because it is so nicely detailed and so well played. Rogen and Streisand really have great chemistry together on the screen and it shows all throughout the entire movie.

"The Guilt Trip" is not a movie to just flicker off with the wave of a hand. Watch it, enjoy it and take it to heart.

This isn't a laugh until you cry comedy, nor is it a deeply touching movie. It is still fun, mostly because of Streisand.

Its nice so see Babs finally relax again and do some comedy. She really shows off her lighter side and she's fun and endearing.

The Paramount marketing department would have you think this film is a wacky laugh fest. Which is a pity, since more people would enjoy the film if their expectations were different. They go in thinking the film is one way. When in reality, it's a whole other thing. The film is much more touching, funny, and real. I cared about the two main characters, and how they interacted. I was interested in what was at stake for them. For me, the smaller moments of the film made it enjoyable. It was delightful to see Streisand and Rogen working off each other like they have known each other for years. Be sure to stay for the credits to see just how well they played off each other.