Keeping Up With the Joneses

One would hope that a movie titled "The Joneses" would be a hard-hitting look at the perils of conspicuous consumerism, but it only gets about halfway there. Without having to decry "spoiler alert!", it can be said that a couple of obvious fingers are wagged in the film, but because embedded in the movie are both caveats and whalefuls of product placement, it's easy to walk away without much more than an aspiration to someday have a Van Cleef and Arpels ring. I wanted to see the one character who ultimately resists the Jonesification to rent a small apartment, wear a solid-color t-shirt, and spend time jogging or reading a book. I wanted those things to be shown as unglamorous but pretty satisfying. I wanted to feel the spaciousness of it, the relief of being off the treadmill. The way it feels to get just what you really need, and nothing more.