The Family Tree

Name: The Family Tree
Director: Vivi Friedman
Released: 2011

Synopsis

A mother and wife stricken with memory loss allows a dysfunctional family a second chance at harmony and happiness.

40
Variety
Suffers from severe problems of tone, a surfeit of undeveloped plot points and characters, and bland direction.
40
Village Voice
Thin as it is, Family Tree is no slog - the droll, attentive performances by Davis and Mulroney are endearing, and the extraneous guest-star bits (including Christina Hendricks as a secretary, no less) and rambling B stories aren't overly distracting.
40
Time Out
Surprise! The upper-middle-class family is still rotten to the core. In Vivi Friedman's overstuffed farce, the parents cheat on each other, the daughter dresses like a streetwalker, and the Bible-thumping son starts carrying a Glock.
40
Los Angeles Times
Director Vivi Friedman's inability to successfully reconcile the film's duality undercuts an eclectic cast gamely committed to Mark Lisson's thematically ambitious, if scattered, script.
38
Slant Magazine
A few trite race and religion jokes goose up what's mostly a sentimental story of a dysfunctional family suddenly and magically learning to function again.
25
New York Post
Family Tree, which seems to have been written using indie-film Mad Libs, devolves into way too many quirky subplots.
10
The New York Times
The only reason I can think of to watch Vivi Friedman's flat, satirical farce The Family Tree - and it's not a good enough reason - is the opportunity to play a game of spot the semi-star.