Comedy to make you smile and shudder

Quietly amusing but quite painful comedy which charts a frustrating day in the lives of its characters

In The Daytrippers, Eliza and Lewis - Hope Davis and Stanley Tucci - who live in the suburbs of New York, return home after spending thanksgiving with Eliza`s family. They seem like a happy couple but, next morning, after Lewis has left for the city where he works for a publishing company, Eliza is distressed to find what looks like a love letter, in the form of a 16th century poem, among her husband`s things. She takes the incriminating evidence to her mother - Anne Meara - for advice...Soon the family are escorting Eliza into the city to confront Lewis with the evidence; which isn`t so simple because he`s away from his office... The Daytrippers is a quietly amusing but quite painful comedy which charts a frustrating day in the lives of its characters. Characterisation and performance count for everything in writer-director Greg Mottola`s first feature, and he`s well served by his cast: Anne Meara as the rather nosy, overbearing mother, Hope Davis as the bewildered wife, Parkey Posey as the ditzy younger sister Jo, Liev Schreiber as her boring boyfriend Carl, who insists on expounding, at length, on the plot of the terrible novel he`s writing. One of the charms of the film is that Eliza and her support group keep getting sidetracked from their main mission; an encounter with a young man and his father, or with a woman and her sister who are moving apartments. The Daytrippers was produced on a modest budget, but it`s wholly successful in making you smile and shudder at the same time.