For the record, it's English. I was born in Tilbury, Essex, made temporarily 
American citizen?"
In The Oranges, the new romantic comedy from director Julian Farino, the principle characters live on
Hugh Laurie, now clean shaven and looking considerably more upbeat since finishing TV’s House for good, plays David Walling, a nice enough, middle-aged guy in a nice, middle class neighborhood who is about to have the kind of mid-life crisis some men may fantasize about but wouldn’t dare share their thoughts; an affair with the attractive, young twenty-something who happens to be the daughter of the best friend. .
Remember the comedy with Michael Caine, Blame It On Rio where Caine has an affair with the daughter of his best friend while on vacation? The Oranges has a similar, slightly uncomfortable feel to it, but without the sex, the exotic location and the prurient thoughts the 1984 film created. The Oranges is a somewhat cleaner version of the same theme, but it isn’t necessarily better or funnier, though it does have its merits.
For one thing, this is a good cast. The Oranges is the first film to showcase Laurie since leaving television, and it’s good to finally see him smile and look upbeat. He maintains his American accent, something that, in general, British audiences have found difficult to accept considering how well known he is as a Brit TV comedian, but American audiences have embraced it without question, plus his overall likable demeanor makes it easy for us to feel a certain amount of sympathy to his dilemma without the usual accompanying lascivious thoughts – well, to a degree.
Laurie’s put-upon wife is played by the always interesting Catherine Keener who has that uncanny ability to make anything she does look interesting. “Someday I may thank you for all of this,” she states to the young woman now sleeping with her husband.
The neighbors, the Ostroffs, are played by Oliver Platt, who has now perfected the art of total befuddlement, and Allison Janney who can deliver any line and make it sound like a zinger. When her daughter talks of getting married at an early age and adds that it’s normal, Janney responds, “Not for white girls from
Both families have a daughter. The Walling’s have Vannesaa (Alia Shawkat) a plain-Jane who narrates part of the film, and the Ostroffs have Nina (Leighton Meester) the attractive one who returns home from college after a two year absence and starts the affair.
The film has a bright look to each scene, something akin to a TV sit-com, and setting a large chunk of the film at Christmas adds to the feel of families that should be celebrating together, even though in The Oranges they’re actually falling apart, but it doesn’t have an ending. It’s as if writers Ian Helfer and Jay Reiss kept writing themselves into a situation they couldn’t end, so they didn’t bother; it all wraps up in what feels like seconds.
