The Family Stone Update

Right on cue, I click to see this defense of the movie, in which this valid point is made:

But more precisely, it’s a holiday story about what happens when you get what you thought want, and find out that it isn’t really what you were looking for at all. 

But she follows is with:

And that’s probably why it’s not more popular. 

Um, no, sorry, that's not why it's not more popular. It's not more popular because within about 5 seconds, any casual viewer cannot stand this fucking family that is for some reason so full of itself - the manic self-congratulation over the fact that they didn't banish their son to the woods when they found out he's gay, for one example, is insufferable. And then on top of it they hafta make the guy deaf, which gives the family a chance to show off how matter-of-factly they toss off sign language, and then ON TOP OF THAT they make his boyfriend black so they can show off how cool they are with that as well. Of course. The whole family just flat-out sucks. Within about 5 seconds you're yelling at the screen to tell Carrie Bradshaw to tell them to go fuck themselves, and leave. It's Meet the Parents but everyone's the DeNiro character, without the charm or humor or even actual devotion to family - DeNiro was tough, but always in the name of watching over his family - other than to smugly pat themselves on the back for being so awesome, for reasons that remain off-screen.

As The Sopranos taught us - you can be horrible people, but if you're likable viewers will still watch. None of these people are likable.