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Family getaways are supposed to be relaxing—a time to escape the daily grind and spend quality time with the ones you love. But in Riff Raff, one family’s getaway to their vacation home in the woods turns chaotic when the other half of the family shows up.
Riff Raff follows a family as their annual New Year’s trip to their country house turns disastrous. To his wife and stepson, Vincent (Ed Harris) is just a mild-mannered contractor—a loving husband and father who leads a perfectly normal life. But when his son, Rocco (Lewis Pullman), shows up at the country house late one night with his pregnant girlfriend and his passed-out mother in tow, it’s clear that something about this family isn’t entirely normal. And with a couple of armed men heading in their direction, the family’s secrets start to come out.
What started out as a relaxing family vacation in the woods quickly turns chaotic—and possibly deadly—for this wildly dysfunctional family. These two halves of the family couldn’t be more different—and, for a while, that offers up some comic material. Vincent’s new family is calm and composed and refined, while his first family is loud and coarse and clearly from a very different kind of neighborhood. When they end up under the same roof, the clash of their different cultures and values couldn’t be more obvious—and everyone is obviously uncomfortable.
Unfortunately, though, once the families end up forced together, waiting for the inevitable, the filmmakers no longer know what to do with them. There are some strange, seemingly random conversations and a few arguments, but there’s not much going on here—and viewers will feel the general awkwardness of this group that seems to have run out of things to say.
The cast here is quite noteworthy—with Harris, Jennifer Coolidge, Gabrielle Union, Bill Murray, and Pete Davidson converging on the country house for a final standoff. But while each character has an entertaining moment or two, the talent here is surprisingly underused. And though this story of clashing families and long-held secrets could have been amusing and explosive, it just feels rather halfhearted.
With a cast like this one, Riff Raff could have been (and should have been) a wildly entertaining crime comedy. Instead, it’s a mildly amusing adventure about a bunch of family members who don’t have a whole lot to say to each other.
You can bunker in with this dysfunctional family when Riff Raff arrives in theaters on February 28, 2025.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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