I Don’t Care If The Family Stone Is A ‘Bad’ Movie, I’ll Watch It Anyway

Like white lights versus colored lights, The Family Stone has become a polarizing Christmas icon to debate. The 2005 film with an all-star ensemble cast is either deeply loved by someone you know or considered an unhinged, terrible movie by somebody else you know.

But I’m here to tell you: It can be both. Because yes, I am well aware that The Family Stone is a truly wild movie, but I love it deeply — and I’m going to watch it this year and every year after anyway.

Yes, Sarah Jessica Parker’s character is a twat. Yes, the Stone family doesn’t really give her a chance. Yes, Rachel McAdams plays an unbelievably annoying family member. Yes, it’s beyond weird that Everett falls in love with his girlfriend’s sister as soon as he meets her and that his brother ends up with his ex.

Trust me, us The Family Stone fans know all of this.

But The Family Stone also gives the best Christmas lesson: The idea that all we have is right now, so we might as well be ourselves and love our people as hard as we can.

No movie portrays such a wholesome, gorgeous — and yes, realistic — family vibe as The Family Stone. From Kelly Stone (played by Craig T. Nelson) kissing his sons on their faces, to all of the siblings using American Sign Language to sign every conversation so their deaf brother never misses a beat. The brothers aren’t afraid of affection with their parents — or each other — and the one grandchild is doted on endlessly by the entire family. Throughout the movie, the Stone siblings play games together, pick up pizza together, snuggle up on the couch together. Individually, they have moments with their parents, from sneaking off for a nap to sneaking off for a joint at the high school football field. It all feels unbelievably real.

This is a family who deeply loves each other — even when one of them is meaner than the rest, even when they disagree with their brother’s choice for a girlfriend — and they aren’t afraid to show it. In one of my favorite scenes, Meredith (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) is describing to the family how she and Everett (played by Dermot Mulroney) met. In the background, you can see siblings sprawled out on their childhood couch, some piled onto the floor together, all of them completely comfortable and completely at peace in their family home.

It’s honestly inspiring.

And then there is the storyline that Sybil Stone (played by Diane Keaton) is dying of cancer — and she knows it. Throughout the film, you find her in quiet moments, staring off into the distance, or becoming increasingly grouchy and irritable with the situations unfolding around her. But once you realize all of that is her grief personifying itself, showing up in the tight corners that only grief knows how to do, it’s easy to see less of a weird mom character and more of a person in Keaton’s performance.

Sybil is the nucleus of her entire family; as such, each feel the ripple effect of grief. Everett wants to propose quickly, with his grandmother’s ring from his mom, because he’s afraid of her dying before he pops the questions. Thadd and his partner Patrick talk openly about wanting to adopt, and you can feel that they are anxious for a match so Sybil can meet her grandchild. Susannah, a mother of one who’s also heavily pregnant, comes to Christmas without her husband, and you know it’s because she doesn’t want to miss a single festive moment with her mom. Ben is constantly diffusing situations and making light of everything as a coping mechanism, while Amy freaks out and acts like a b*tch as hers.

It is all overwhelmingly lovely and heartbreaking and real. It’s how I imagine we all hope our families would react if we were dying of cancer: That they’d drop everything to be with us, even as their fully flawed selves.

The Family Stone isn’t meant to be judged by one plot point. It’s meant to be looked at as one whole movie, full of characters that mess up and apologize and then mess up again. It’s meant to be comforting and joyful, to be cringey and sad. It’s meant to be everything that reminds us of our own families and how lucky we are to desperately want one more day with our weird, over-the-top dynamic.

The Family Stone is not meant to be a “good” movie. The Family Stone is meant to be a Christmas movie.

And if seeing the whole family cry on Christmas morning as they open their gifts from Meredith doesn’t do something to your heart, you deserve a visit from three ghosts, too.