This was pretty good. We enjoyed it.
BJ Novak does a pretty good job of making a caricature of both elitist NY liberal and country Texan while letting the plot and characters grow. His character is pretty much a presumptuous liberal New Yorker writer asshole that knows nothing about Texas. And the Texas family is, on the surface, a stereotypical dumb simple group. But the whole thing pokes enough fun at both and admits that a lot of his preconceptions were misconceptions, or at least misunderstandings.
I will say that I think he was trying to do a lot with the Quentin character and some of it dragged a little too long or got slightly overplayed. The whole movie paid off along with all the other stuff going on, but was very close to being overdone, if not slightly crossing. And since BJ Novak directed and wrote it, I think he also tried to do a lot of homages or winks and nods to other tropes.
But it was good. I think this is his first feature and I’d definitely be interested to see what else he comes up with.
