First Hit: Could have been more fully fleshed out to make it more interesting.
The obvious set-up is that people do outlandish and stupid things to keep up with The Joneses. This film is about a family unit called the Jones.
Demi Moore plays Kate Jones who is head of this unit. In her unit are her pretend husband Steve Jones (played by David Duchovny) and fake children Jenn Jones (played by Amber Heard) and Mick Jones (played by Ben Hollingsworth).
The unit is really a sales machine. It is not a real family although they pretend they are to the world around them. They exist to sell merchandize the manufactures and sponsors want them to sell at any given time.
The unit moves into an area and sells their lifestyle, what they appear to own, use and eat, to neighbors and friends. They do this by being the people everyone else wants to be. The kids are hip, have the newest and hippest things, and look just great.
The adults mingle at country clubs, hair salons, or anywhere they can influence others with their shiny new toys and extra fantastic good looks. By showing off what they have others may think they will be happy if they have the same stuff, just like The Joneses.
We all know the fallacy of this argument. You like Steve’s watch and buy one, Steve’s sales ratio goes up. You like Mick’s new hand held video game and buy one; Mick’s sales ratio goes up. This is Kate's first assignment as lead member of a unit and really is pushing to get the entire unit's sales up so that they can get "icon" status.
Only once, during this film, do we understand why anyone would want this kind of life when Steve’s background and history is revealed to the audience. But why is Kate so driven to this lifestyle? How do kids become part of a family unit? Where are their real parents? Are they orphans?
This is where the film falls apart. There is very little background context to the story to make it plausible and therefore are suppose to just accept it. Not that the idea wasn’t good, it just wasn’t well developed.
Moore looks good and carries off the style of the part rather well. She can be cold, distant, directorial, attractive and alluring; but when Duchovny asks her if she ever wants to have a real family, her response was “no” as if she was capable of having kids. She is young enough to have the older kids in the film but too old to even entertain having new kids. Duchovny is the most fleshed out character of the group and this is an asset to both him and the film. His role is to be the conscious of the unit and questions the legitimacy of what they are doing. In the end he makes the right choice. Derrick Borte co-wrote and directed this film and unfortunately there was little character development which might have made this somewhat entertaining film a whole lot better.
Overall: At best this is a rental film and has mild entertainment value but not worth a full price of admission.