Roadside Attractions are grabbing some AFM headlines with a post-TIFF sale pick-up (which are trickling in about a one sale per week rate). Never going overboard with the film inventory (they have Happy Tears and The Good Guy prepped for next year), the distributor are getting ready for Spring with Derrick Borte’s The Joneses. The pic which received its world premiere at TIFF and I was too tired to see at the scheduled crack of dawn screening I had pegged it for, should logically should receive an April or May play date. Borte pulled from his own experiences working in the advertising industry to come up with the original idea. The TIFF description below gives us an idea of what to expect.
Borte begins the film by showing us ourselves – or at least who we often aspire to be. We meet Steve Jones (David Duchovny), his wife, Kate (Demi Moore), and their children Jenn (Amber Heard) and Mick (Ben Hollingsworth) as they move into their monster home in an affluent suburb of a city somewhere in America. Friendly, confident and very good-looking, they are also loaded with the coolest, newest stuff.
The Joneses are much more than just the new neighbours. Within days, all four family members have insinuated their way into the community. Their most dedicated fans are their next-door neighbours Larry (Gary Cole) and Summer (Glenne Headly), a couple devoted to each other yet prone to keeping secrets as well. Despite the Joneses’ success integrating into the community, soon the fissures in their family begin to spew. But it’s not until an outright catastrophe occurs next door that they are forced to make choices about their priorities.
