Nobody's miscast, if you don't count the director. Levy worked with Fey and Steve Carell on the almost-good "Date Night", and otherwise the director has a lot of assembly-line products on his resume. Among them are the first Steve Martin "Pink Panther," "Just Married" and "The Internship" on the lower end, the second "Night at the Museum" a few ticks higher. Levy went after Tropper's novel because he liked it and, presumably, he saw it as a comfortable stretch, a relaxed and bittersweet blend of high-, medium- and low-comic strains.
Thing is, Levy is a hard-sell man. He pushes the material so hard, it's as if he were working on commission. The only other scene I relaxed into in "This Is Where I Leave You" finds Bateman and Fey having a catch-up conversation on the roof of the family home. Nothing special in terms of material, but as with the scene described earlier, the actors sit back, relax and enjoy the interaction. The movie's painless. It's OK. And with this cast, OK is disappointing.
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