Around the time when Sarah Jessica Parker hung up her Manolo Blahniks and bid farewell to Sex and the City, she turned down dozens of roles because they were tired variations on her Carrie Bradshaw character. Then she read Thomas Bezucha's script for The Family Stone, with the juicy role of Meredith, ice princess from hell, and signed on.

Trouble is, though it may have been a shrewd career move for Parker-a chance to shuck her Carrie image and work with Diane Keaton, after all-her involvement may have
proved dicey for writer-director Bezucha, and it's perhaps the biggest stickler in an otherwise tender, engaging comedy. The 41-year old filmmaker allows the superstar
to embrace her inner bitch so thoroughly she nearly throws the wonderful dreamcast ensemble off balance.

To be fair, Meredith is supposed to be a monster. She's the uptight girlfriend of buttoned-up Everett Stone (the dashing Dermot Mulroney), who brings her home to the family manse in a bucolic New England college town for the holidays. Given the Stones' trademark of bohemian eccentricity, and that she's an impeccably styled IPO manager whose hair is pulled back tighter than a prima donna ballerina, the visit seems doomed from the get-go.

In scene after scene Meredith struggles to elbow her way into the quirky clan, failing spectacularly. At odd moments, she blathers incessantly, unaware that her audience has erected an invisible wall of disdain she can never penetrate. One night at a family feast, her remarks are misinterpreted as homophobic and racist. Fists are slammed on the table, china clatters, and she flees in tears.

Pretty much everyone in the house hates her, especially Amy Stone, played by
Rachel McAdams, who has taken a cue from her recent Mean Girls role and welcomes
her brother's girlfriend with barbed insults and icy glares. McAdams, who also starred
in last summer's mega-hit Wedding Crashers, was another casting coup for the
ambitious director.

The matriarch, Sybil, played to eccentric perfection by Keaton, runs the household with controlled chaos. When she announces, "No pot in the house this year," we suspect she has little intention of enforcing the ban. While Sybil cannot hide her disdain for the interloper, she does manage to hide a terrible secret. At least, for a while.

The hippie of the family, Ben Stone (Luke Wilson), who is home from Berkeley, California
--"NOT Los Angeles," he insists--reaches out to Meredith to console her. "You have a freak flag, you just don't fly it," he tells her, in all earnestness.

The film's title, by the way, refers not only to this sweetly dysfunctional family but also to Sybil's antique engagement ring. The precious heirloom was promised to Everett, but when he reveals his designs on Meredith, all bets are off.

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