Shawn Levy and Jonathan Tropper‘s This Is Where I Leave You (Warner Bros., 9.19) is one of those soothing suburban-middle-class family comedies in which the major characters (four 30something kids and their mom) fret about, examine and resolve their respective issues. I missed the opening 25 minutes in Toronto so I caught it again last night. It’s not bad — it just starts to feel like a sedative after the first hour. It occured to me that movies of this sort always take place in a really nice (usually pre-war) home with a nice big lawn shaded by big trees, plenty of bedrooms, loads of food on the dinner table, etc. And the photography is steady and unfussy and the lighting is just right with everyone looking well-dressed in a casual sort of way with perfect hair, etc. The idea is to make the audience feel as flush and comfortable as the characters. But I need to give Levy credit for handling the husband-discovers-wife-in-bed-with-his-boss scene (which is in the trailer) in an unexpected way. The husband (Jason Bateman) is holding a birthday cake when he walks in on the nasty-doers (Abigail Spencer, Dax Shepard), and right away you’re expecting Bateman to dump the cake on Spencer’s head. Or on Shepard’s. I’m not going to spoil but Bateman doesn’t do that. And what he does is just right. It might be the best scene in the film.