Depending on how one looks at it, The Joneses was released in the best time or the worst time. It takes the notion of “having everything won't make you happy” and turns it inside out on itself. It's a dark look at a picturesque, upscale neighborhood that, like most neighborhoods—if not all—is hellbent on having the best and newest of anything you can name: cars, golf clubs, clothing, makeup, video games, frozen food, the list goes on.
Providing direction for their shopping is the new and mysterious family on the block, the Joneses. The audience can tell immediately something is not ordinary when Mr. Steve Jones (David Duchovny) tells Mrs. Kate Jones (Demi Moore) that they will “do some major damage in this town.” In the back seat are two younger Joneses, Mick (Ben Hollingsworth) and Jenn (Amber Heard). Their idiosyncrasies are never realized by their neighbors, however, as the Joneses know how to put on a charming facade. To their new next door neighbors, the Symonds, they're the most likable and best-looking family a neighbor could ask for.
Plus, they have all the coolest crap you can imagine. Their cars are brand new, Steve's golf driver is something state-of-the-art, Kate's dress is from some exotic store, Mick's skateboard is cutting edge, and Jenn's lip gloss is all the rage. Everyone gets to know them, everyone comes to love them, and everyone tries to “keep up with the Joneses.” And all the better for the Joneses, because after a while into the movie the audience learns that this is what they do for a living: have cool stuff and try to get people to buy the stuff. The four work for some secretive advertising company that employs “stealth marketing” to areas around the country—possibly the world, judging from the way KC, their head-honcho boss, conducts herself like she might be in cahoots with Jason Bourne—in order to boost sales in new products. They're paid to spew out the American Dream in the most perverse ways possible and hope you follow suit.
The most interesting relationship in the film is between Steve and Kate, pretend husband and wife. David Duchovny plays a great, likable smart-ass with ease; the audience actually learns he used to be a car salesman before working as a steal marketer. His character works in perfect conjunction with Kate, a stern, career-driven woman who actually outranks Steve, thus is the somewhat “leader” of the family. The pretend life is Kate's real life, and there are fleeting moments where the two connect on a deeper level, but the tragedy is that the film glosses over these for the first hour in order to give the audience what seems like an endless string of montages (there are actually two, I think) of the family doing what they do best: selling the dream. As for Mick and Jenn, all I can say is that their little subplots, treated unfairly and shoved into the story in order to create some contrived and emotional moments, are unnecessary, as interesting as they could have been had they been given more screen time.
What's even more tragic: as the film is glossing over the deeper human moments in the film, it glosses over the finer points of their unique career choice. With the cartoonish computer screen displays tracking their percentage of sales boosts, and the monthly in-house reviews from their boss, KC, the whole process is oversimplified and leaves questions. The story puts their percentages of sales under high scrutiny, but what it left me wondering how the company actually tracks any of that information. How does the company track Steve's contribution to the growing sales of sporting goods? Especially when the family constantly utilizes the “ripple effect” strategy, wherein they convince some sucker to buy a new, high-tech product in order for the sucker to brag about it to their sucker friends and have their sucker friends buy it. It creates some kind of disconnect pyramid of sales that seems pretty impossible to track, and we're forced to just go along with the growing numbers the family's produce. Perhaps it's a mundane detail, or perhaps it's a plot hole.
I'd like to think the former as much as possible, though it isn't much until the last act that the most interesting pieces of the puzzle start coming together, and some of the realistic and tragic consequences of the Joneses lifestyle come to the forefront. With about twenty minutes left in the film, it goes from somewhat decent to really quite poignant, and it's too bad the filmmakers couldn't have put more effort into the first two-thirds of the movie. But during the somewhat decent moments, it's a plucky, dark comedy that will do some entertaining.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
Just some deleted scenes.
"The Joneses" is on sale August 10, 2010 and is rated R. Comedy. Directed by Derrick Borte. Written by Derrick Borte (written by), Randy T. Dinzler (story). Starring Amber Heard, Ben Hollingsworth, David Duchovny, Demi Moore, Gary Cole.
