The Joneses

Directed by Derrick Borte

(R)

**

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First-time writer-director Derrick Borte has created a viciously clever, “highly entertaining indictment of American consumerism,” said Rex Reed in The New York Observer. In this biting satire, the fabulous-looking new family in town turns out to be a group of stealth marketers, played by David Duchovny, Demi Moore, and “kids” Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth. As the film’s characters endeavor to convince their neighbors that buying stuff really can bring happiness, The Joneses presents a “fresh, scintillating” take on this country’s compulsion to consume. Borte has dreamed up a brilliant premise, said Rafer Guzman in Newsday. Too bad his film “fails to close the deal.” Once an actual romance begins to brew between “Mom” and “Dad,” and one of the conniving Joneses inconveniently discovers his conscience, the family business begins to suffer. The sharp humor quickly gives way to a “dull, blunt drama” that avoids real social criticism, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. Ultimately, The Joneses turns into an “exercise in the very phoniness it initially set out to expose.” Don’t be surprised if you leave the theater feeling cheated.