Cinema Experts

"The point of acting is to share, to connect. That's why I act. Acting is the greatest answer to my loneliness that I have found."

Danes was born in Manhattan to Christopher Danes, a computer consultant and former architectural photographer, and Carla, a day care provider, painter, and textile designer who would later serve as Claire's manager. Danes has described her background as being "as WASPy as you can get". Danes attended the Dalton School in New York City, the Professional Performing Arts School in New York City, and the exclusive private high school Lycée Français de Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California. In 1998, Danes went to Yale University. After studying for two years as a psychology major, she dropped out of Yale to focus on her film career.
Danes is perhaps most famous for bringing Angela Chase to life in the 1994 television drama series My So-Called Life, for which she won a Golden Globe Award and received an Emmy nomination. She played Elizabeth ("Beth") March in the 1994 movie adaption of Little Women. She also appeared as Holly Hunter's daughter in Home For The Holidays, which was directed by Jodie Foster. This was followed by her role as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet co-starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The same year she turned down the part of Rose in Titanic due to exhaustion from Romeo and Juliet. Her first role in an animated feature came in 1999 with the English version of Princess Mononoke. During the same year, she took the lead role in Brokedown Palace, alongside Kate Beckinsale and Bill Pullman.
In 2002, Danes starred opposite Susan Sarandon and Kieran Culkin in Igby Goes Down. She later co-starred as Meryl Streep's daughter in the Oscar-nominated The Hours, with Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Ed Harris. The following year, she was cast in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines; and Stage Beauty, in 2004. She earned critical acclaim in 2005 when she starred in Steve Martin's Shopgirl alongside Martin and Jason Schwartzman, and in The Family Stone opposite Sarah Jessica Parker and Diane Keaton. In 2007, Danes appeared in the fantasy epic Stardust, which she described as a "classic model of romantic comedy", opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, and Sienna Miller, and will appear in The Flock, opposite Richard Gere.
Danes appeared in Off-Broadway plays including Happiness, Punk Ballet, and Kids On Stage, in which she choreographed her own solo dance. She also wrote the introduction to Neil Gaiman's Death: The Time of Your Life. Danes also auditioned for the role of Lois Lane in Superman Returns before the role went to Kate Bosworth.Starting in September, Danes will make her Broadway debut in the revival of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion starring as Eliza Doolittle.

“I'm sorry, I would sign, but I don't know the language.”
Meredith Morton is not the kind of woman you would call relaxed in social settings. She gets the case of the dry-throats which can result in her trying to clear it, and any attempt to alleviate her awkwardness results in her digging an even bigger hole for herself. And to top it all, she is the fiancée of Everett Stone, and he is about to do the criminal: introduce her to his family.
The Stones are the kind of family anyone would want to be a part of. Liberal minded almost to idealistic extremes, nothing is sacred with them, not the sexual escapades of youngest daughter Amy by one Brad Stevenson which mother Sybil casually makes a reference to (as if this were the latest recipe for apple crumb cake), not brother Ben's fondness for pot and nudity, and certainly not Thad's gayness and interracial lover Patrick and their intentions to adopt.
So why the hostility towards Meredith? Because, as Amy points out and they all come to witness, she's just wrong in more ways than one and Everett, whom they all love, is about to make a grave mistake in marrying her. Meredith lacks the warmth and spontaneity that makes for a complete human being and is a complete control freak who is as incapable of letting loose as they are incapable of being stuffed shirts. Matters get complicated when Meredith calls on her sister Julie and she reveals to be as different from Meredith as day is to night: she's the real deal. And something barely mentioned among the Stones, simmering below the surface has Sybil vehemently opposed to even the thought of Meredith becoming a part of her family.
The Family Stone certainly has moments of hilarity and is being marketed as a romantic comedy, but it really has a little too much emotional gravitas to be considered as such.
Maybe a drama/comedy should fit it better. It's a very poignant film that manages to touch sensitive issues such as terminal disease and gay parenting without ever hammering it in. If the time frame weren't so fixed where the story lines must be solved come Christmas it is possible that it were a shade more believable, but in the tradition of Christmas movies, it's all about the magic and wonder and situations finding closure.Despite a sizable cast, there isn't a role that feels underwritten. Sarah Jessica Parker, in her first starring role since Sex and the City, plays against her girlish type and becomes Meredith Morton - a woman too severe for her own good, too shrill for a family so lax.
Diane Keaton also plays somewhat against her intellectual type and shows what a mother's anger can do when a nasty comment is made. Keaton's interaction with Craig T. Nelson is so heartfelt one could think they have been married in real life for over thirty years. Rachel MacAdams has a field day playing a character whose messiness and blunt nature clashes in every aspect with Meredith's uptightness.
Claire Danes has a role reminiscent of Donna Reed - natural, girlish, wholesome - again a total opposite to Parker, and necessary to make Parker stand out as a sore thumb.
Dermot Mulroney and Luke Wilson also find the right notes in their characters: one wanting to make something of himself and believing that marrying an anal woman will grant him that, the other a sensitive man hiding under an apparent facade of neo-hippiness.
The Family Stone is a genuine, heartfelt movie and despite its political correctness it manages to be nicely subversive while also reviving Christmas films from the 40s, such as Meet Me in St. Louis (“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas) and The Man Who Came to Dinner… 9/10