Peeples

A self-styled children's therapist (Craig Robinson), frustrated that his girlfriend (Kerry Washington) won't introduce him to her family, crashes a reunion on their Long Island estate, where he runs afoul of her father (David Alan Grier). Writer-director Tina Gordon Chism studiously avoids any trace of originality or cleverness in this leaden, obvious, maladroit comedy. Robinson has a basic sincerity and ease before the camera that fitfully overcomes his surroundings, and Law and Order's S. Epatha Merkerson, as Washington's tipsy mother, does a rare comedy turn with clear relish. Others in the cast have more difficulty with the contrived situations, awkward dialogue and Chism's flailing, arrythmic direction. Washington is particularly ill-served by Alexander Gruszynski's flat, unflattering cinematography.