THE JONESES 4/4
Roadside Attractions, Rated R
Somewhere on the way to the future, America decided it’s better to have designer wear, home entertainment gadgets and furniture with color-coordinated walls than good schools, affordable health care, and a job and home for everyone. Or did it?
[popup url=”http://assets.longislandpress.com/photos/gallery.php?gazpart=view&gazimage=2131″]
Click here to view more photos from The Joneses[/popup]
Much more than just great storytelling with a knockout ensemble cast, The Joneses telegraphs the hard questions. Chief among these is: Where did we go wrong as a nation in embracing warped priorities, craving tons of consumer commodities we don’t need and devaluing all the human necessities that give life value and meaning?
Ben Hollingsworth as Mick, Amber Heard as Jenn, Demi Moore as Kate and David Duchovny as Steve in The Joneses
According to The Joneses’ German-born writer and director Derrick Borte, we’ve basically been had by all sorts of surrounding commercial forces whose existence we may barely be aware of. And Borte should know—he plied his visual craft in the corporate and advertising worlds before turning to filmmaking to expose and condemn them.
Demi Moore and David Duchovny are Kate and Steve Jones, the parents of a picture-perfect family that includes high school kids Jenn (Amber Heard) and Mick (Ben Hollingsworth). Taking up residence in a swanky suburban gated Atlanta community, the Joneses quickly become the envy of just about everyone in town because they own more luxury goods and brand-name duds than anyone else. But all is not as it seems: The Joneses are really a marketing tool created to spread these material possessions and drive their neighbors to them.
As the pretend family goes undercover, with Demi as its bossy head and Duchovny as her less-than-enthusiastic sidekick, they take orders from the company’s main branch to tempt their gullible neighbors, creating desire for possessions they don’t actually need and in many cases can’t afford, with the ultimate goal of the smoothly perfected art of the sell and company profits.
A horror movie in its own way but more giddy than gory, The Joneses takes the creepy premise of say, The Stepford Wives, and its obedient, robotic consumerism to the commercially invasive next level of in-your-face upscale pseudo-marital marketing.
