We Somehow Missed The Oranges the First Time Around
Today’s Movie Watchable is one of those films that somehow slipped right past us the first time around: The Oranges, Julian Farino’s darkly comic suburban dramedy starring Leighton Meester, Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Allison Janney, Alia Shawkat and Adam Brody.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011 before receiving a U.S. theatrical release in 2012. Directed by Julian Farino from a screenplay by Ian Helfer and Jay Reiss, it runs about 90 minutes and takes place inside the very comfortable — and very combustible — world of two longtime neighboring families in suburban New Jersey.
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Put The Oranges on Your Holiday Watchlist
A sharp little suburban holiday dramedy with a stacked cast, dark humor and just enough seasonal dysfunction to make the whole thing go down easy.
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The setup is wonderfully messy. Nina Ostroff, played by Leighton Meester, returns home after being away for years and winds up falling for David Walling, Hugh Laurie’s character — who just happens to be her father’s best friend and the patriarch of the family across the street.
That one relationship detonates the carefully maintained friendship between the Wallings and the Ostroffs, sending both households into the kind of suburban holiday chaos that would feel unbearable in real life and, thankfully, very entertaining from the couch.
It’s a Christmas Movie — Just Not the Syrupy Kind
What surprised us most is how much The Oranges works as a Christmas-season movie without behaving like one of those painfully manufactured holiday films that seems determined to teach you a lesson every six minutes.
This one is drier. Stranger. More adult. The holiday setting is there — Thanksgiving, Christmas decorations, family traditions and the expectation that everyone is supposed to be happy together — but the comedy comes from watching all of that forced normalcy crack apart.
It is not slapstick. It is not preachy. It is not cheap. The humor is understated and uncomfortable in exactly the right way, and the cast understands that the funniest moments often come from playing the dysfunction straight rather than begging for a laugh.
And that cast really is the selling point. Laurie brings the same wonderful dryness that made him so watchable on television, Meester gives Nina enough unpredictability to keep the premise from becoming completely absurd, and Allison Janney, Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt know exactly how to make a family argument feel both terrible and funny at the same time.
A Little Mean, a Little Warm and Very Watchable
The movie was not exactly a critics’ darling when it came out, and we can understand why. It is small, talky and intentionally awkward. But watching it now, away from whatever expectations surrounded its original release, may actually be the better way to find it.
There is something appealing about a movie that is perfectly happy being a slightly odd, dark suburban comedy instead of trying to announce itself as Important Cinema. The Oranges knows its lane: terrific actors, messy relationships, dry humor and enough Christmas atmosphere to make it an easy seasonal rewatch.
So yes, we missed this one the first time around. Better late than never.
It has officially joined our list of unconventional holiday movies — the ones you put on when you want Christmas in the background but absolutely do not need anybody learning the true meaning of anything.
Watch the Official Trailer for The Oranges
The trailer introduces the Walling and Ostroff families, Nina’s return home and the relationship that blows up both households over the holidays.
Sources: Stolen Sky Productions; IMDb; Rotten Tomatoes.
