The Guilt Trip (2012) * *

Directed by:  Anne Fletcher

Starring:  Seth Rogen, Barbra Streisand, Adam Scott

Andy Brewster is a scientist who creates a cleaning product made from all-natural ingredients.    He is striking out on his own trying to sell the product to various big chain stores, but he fails mostly because his delivery style is akin to a shouting first grader in a school play.   He also has a loving, overprotective mother who lives 3000 miles away and leaves him 12 phone messages an hour.  Andy returns her calls with one call summarizing his answers to the other twelve.  Andy's mother, Joyce, is a sweet widow whose heart is in the right place even if she is a mite overbearing.

Andy visits his mother on the way to various sales pitches which are doomed to fail.   She tells him a story of a long lost love named Andy.    Spurred on by this story and wanting his mother to reunite with her former love, Andy finds out where her old flame lives and asks to her to accompany him as he travels across the country.   He, of course, doesn't tell the real reason why their journey will stop in San Francisco, but she is thrilled to be along for the ride.  

The Guilt Trip pretty much mozies along and things go as expected.   Andy and Joyce rent a compact car, she nags him, his pitches bomb, they fight and reconcile, he finally wins over buyers, get to San Francisco, and the credits roll.   Not much happens in The Guilt Trip that hasn't been covered in other movies before and better.   There is even a sequence in which Joyce attempts to win a free dinner by scarfing down a 50-oz steak and sides.   I was reminded of when John Candy had to accomplish a much more Herculean task of eating "the old 96er" in The Great Outdoors.  In The Guilt Trip, Joyce eating all of the food doesn't amount to much, although nobody barfs.  

Perhaps a problem here is that both Rogen and Streisand play warm, nice people.  In a movie like Only The Lonely (1991), which also starred John Candy, he was a nice guy who tangles with his very domineering mother who says hurtful things without thinking.  Candy had something to push against.   There is no real friction between Rogen and Streisand.  Joyce mentions her sex life a few times and this repulses Andy, but that's about it in the conflict department.  When the two have a fight, it feels thrown in because such road movies require it.     

Road movies by definition are predictable, so some kind of bite is needed to make the endeavor worth watching.  The Guilt Trip lacks bite. It's gentle, genial, and sort of pleasant, but after it was all over I was left with a "meh" feeling.  Both Rogen and Streisand can play edgy characters, but they weren't given a chance to in this film.  Some juice is sorely needed.