"The Joneses:" B
Modern American society is a consumer culture where everything is bought and sold in a never entirely truthful relationship between buyer and seller. “The Joneses” takes that culture to the next logical conclusion in an emotional, funny and eye-opening movie about the blurred lines between customer and salesmen.
David Duchovny and Demi Moore star as the attractive and very happy Steve and Kate Jones — at least, that’s what they tell everyone their names are. In reality, they and their children, Mic and Sarah (played by Ben Hollingsworth and Amber Heard) are selling a faux version of the American fantasy. They did not earn or inherit anything, but have been provided with the best cars, the best shoes, the hottest video games and most powerful golf clubs, all so that they can be seen and beloved by a community eager to share in their success.
Beneath the glamour is a family that isn’t a family at all. The Joneses are really salesmen hired to portray a family unit, the members of which aren’t really related in any way. Loving, devoted and long-married “Mom” and “Dad” only met a few months ago, and “Mom” has only been working with her “children” for a few years. The Joneses have been hired to sell the beautiful American family with all the beautiful American toys that money can buy. It’s a beauty skin deep, but thoroughly magnetic — just a credit card slip away from being yours. In this American fantasy, if you want a taste of the beauty and success of the Joneses, you just have to pay. However, once their perfect lie of a life slowly comes to light, no one is prepared for the consequences.
The audience buys into the energy of this made-up family hook, line and sinker. We are fascinated by their energy and drawn in by the absurdities of their non-family unit that afford many laughs. The audience is always interested and never bored as strong humor and carefully crafted exploration of what it all means meld into a 90-minute sales pitch.
Derrick Borte’s directorial debut is deeply resonant and very funny to modern American consumer culture on a variety of levels. We see the pressure of the sale and the power of the product. We feel the need to stand out by buying into the allure of the perfect dining set and mind-blowing new gizmos.
Shot in a lightning-fast 31 days, “Joneses” is expertly paced and empowered by a spot-on cast. In particular, Duchovny and Moore display a superb chemistry that is always uncomfortable, but perpetually hinting at possibilities their contract and their unit cannot abide.
In a question and answer session with the audience after a D.C. screening of the film, Borte revealed that while most of the products displayed are real, none are paid product placement — many were donated by their respective companies. The movie was filmed in a gated Georgia community full of what Borte called “McMansions.”
According to Borte, in “Joneses,” the idea of the strange relationships bred in reality TV households where complete strangers are tossed into a house together “was what I wanted to focus on with the background of stealth marketing.”
Stealth product placement at its most clever and invasive, “The Joneses” never feels pressured to devolve in needless exposition or explanation. Our fully-realized understanding of the plot comes out naturally from the characters and the house of cards they are living in. Ever ready to teeter over, the deception of perfection hides people not nearly so perfect, but perfectly happy as they would have you believe.
We see in “The Joneses” a taste of celebrity culture where everyone thinks all it took to make the actress the ultimate sex object was the amazing dress she wore, and therefore buying that dress can do the same for them. We begin to understand how easy it is to plummet down the rabbit hole of spending — promised by the American dream and enabled by the American credit card — to the superficial happiness we’ve been told is our entitlement.
Tragic, funny and poignant, “The Joneses” deftly handles modern American consumer culture. We see in these characters — on both ends of the sale — more than a little bit of our own American fantasy. As Borte said, when the screen fades, regardless of what has happened in the film, “the machine rolls on.” But with “The Joneses,” there is an excellent chance we have learned something along the way and an even better chance that we enjoyed the lesson.
“The Joneses” is now playing in select D.C. theaters.
You can reach this staff writer at bkoenig@theeagleonline.com.
