'THE STEPS'.........ASSEMBLE-IT-YOURSELF DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY WEEKEND MOVIE......

The Steps (2015)  We don't want to spend any more time on this movie than the people who slapped it together spent writing and directing it......

             Big family get together.......long simmering anger and resentments.......awkward, embarrassing physical slapstick for one or more family members........hidden truths revealed!......closure for old grudges........."we're all assholes, but at the end of the day we're family, right?"........hug, hug.....

              We almost slipped into a coma writing all that.......try sitting through it.....

               But oh sweet Lord, the friggin' houses in these 'family weekend from hell' movies........that's the one thing they all share...........stunning 'Architectural Digest' houses that you and I will never experience outside of flipping through doctors' office magazines while waiting for our Colonoscopy,  watching HGTV on rainy Saturday afternoons......and suffering through movies like "The Steps"....

              The plot? Must we?  In a tiny nutshell...... two thirty-something professional failure siblings summoned to rich old daddy's sumptuous lakeside Architectural Digest house.....to meet daddy's new hot-to-trot wife and....surprise, surprise....their three new grown step-siblings for Ms. Hot-To-Trot's previous marriages.......

               Ole Daddy wants everyone to quickly bond over the weekend, since he and Hot-To-Trot plan to adopt an adorable little Chinese orphan girl.......and the whole Fam needs to make a good impression on the Social Services adoption worker who's showing up with the toddler on Monday morning.......

                 Hilarity and heartbreak ensue........we kid you, of course. What really ensues are the filmmakers exhausted attempts to slavishly imitate or reproduce every creaking, worn out 'dysfunctional family weekend' plot device you've ever seen......or they've ever seen....

                  By the time we come to the arrival of the Adoption Lady and the Chinese tyke, we're in the realm of pure fantasy here.......because in the real world, any sane responsible Social Services person, upon seeing this family, would throw a protective blanket over the kid's head, scoop her up and flee for dear life. 

                   1 star (*).....for the house only.  For everything else....zero.