The Perfect Family

Kathleen Turner enjoys her best film role in years, doing very well with a character who proves alternately sympathetic and infuriating amidst confusing changes in her life. An ultra-devout Catholic, Eileen (Turner) is a nominee for the “Catholic Woman of the Year” prize handed out annually at her parish. She already is well-regarded by her priest (Richard Chamberlain) for her many volunteer acts, but since the winner will be decided by an Irish archbishop, Eileen needs her husband and grown children to put on a front of conventional family values and homogenous behavior. However, Eileen's daughter Shannon (Emily Deschanel) has just come out as a pregnant lesbian with intentions to marry her female partner; her son Frank Jr. (Jason Ritter) has left his wife and taken up with an older manicurist; and her husband (Michael McGrady) wants Eileen to just go with the flow of these changes. While everyone in the cast (which also includes Elizabeth Pena and Sharon Lawrence) is terrific, Turner fascinates as a woman genuinely suffering from pure disorientation because her family is not what she expected them to be. Director Anne Renton's The Perfect Family is a thoughtful comedy with a bit of Hollywood gloss and a satisfying ending. Recommended. (T. Keogh)