For me these movies are hit or miss. ‘The big chill’ and ‘This is where I leave you’ weren’t too impressive to me. However I liked Silver Linings playbook a lot.
What other movies have plot lines along this line?
People (usually multiple people) move away and have their own lives, then some event forces them to all get together years/decades later and all the drama they had before comes back up.
Margot at the Wedding
I guess ‘Rachel getting married’ would also fit. I don’t know if I ever saw that all the way through though.
Dan in Real Life
Really just one person coming back and there’s not that much drama, but Beautiful Girls?
The Judge is a recent example.
The Skeleton Twins
If you want a comedy in these lines, I liked Eulogy.
Two other recent examples are “Nebraska” and “August: Osage County”.
You Can Count on Me, with Mark Ruffalo playing a brother that returns home to see his sister, played by Laura Linney (they were orphaned as kids).
I remember it being better than the 6.1 rating would reflect, but it has been a long time.
Really there are a ton of movies with these themes. I’d even go so far to say that they seem to fall into several subcategories:
Quarter life crisis films (i.e. life beat me down and I’m back at home or maybe I’m just home from college):
Garden State
The Pallbearer
The Lifeguard
American Pie 2
So and so is getting married!
American Wedding
Reunion films (can also have quarter-life crisis elements):
Gross Point Blank
American Reunion
Romy & Michelle’s High School Reunion
I got out and was successful, what am I doing back here?!
Just Friends
Sweet Home Alabama
Four Christmases
Let’s get the old gang back together for old times (and work through that shit that’s been festering for 20 years)!
Grown Ups / Grown Ups 2
Hot Tub Time Machine
Stephen King’s It
Four Brothers
Homicide: Life on the Street, the Movie
Indian Summer
“Late for Dinner” (one with VERY good reason for all the drama)
When Do We Eat?
Much Ado About Nothing
Star Wars