Bryn Vale, left, and Taylor Schilling in Family (Facebook)

Here’s a line I never thought I would write: this R-rated family comedy really picks up once the cast gets to the Gathering of the Juggalos, the annual festival thrown by Psychopathic Records. Yes, that really happens. In true Insane Clown Posse fashion, the point the movie tries to make, about all of us being freaks, never really hits its mark, nor does the most of the comedy. (I laughed twice; once at something Kate McKinnon did, and the second time was at the attempt to include the Posse in a cameo)

The premise is basically Uncle Buck, except instead of a down-and-out gambler watching his successful brother’s kids for a week, we instead have Taylor Schilling playing a career-obsessed woman with no personal life challenged with watching her awkward niece. Schilling’s character, Kate, is a snob with absolutely no personal skills whatsoever. In the first few minutes, the film goes out of its way to depict how everyone at her workplace hates her. But they keep going back to the well—how many times and in how many situations can Kate insult someone? Also, how the hell did she get to be so successful if she’s that horrendous at interpersonal relations?

Kate’s brother, along with his wife, has to leave town to move his dying mother-in-law into a hospice, and Kate is the only person who can take care of her niece. Maddie (Bryn Vale) is 11, and her mother seemingly forces her into participating in traditional activities like cheerleading and ballet, even though Maddie prefers live-action role playing and sneaks out of her ballet class to attend the karate studio next door. Aunt Kate looks at young Maddie and is instantly weirded out. She tries giving her a makeover, but we all know what’s coming—as it turns out, Kate was not much different than Maddie as a kid. Oh, and for some reason, her brother just happens to have a photo in the hallway of Kate wearing a cape (just like Maddie), because Kate has to see it at just the right moment to remind her what a free spirit she used to be. Again, juggalos.

This film brings up alcohol a lot, but it never lands on a statement about it. Aunt Kate downs multiple bottles of wine every night, so it’s a wonder how she got to be where she is in her hedge fund career. At one point, she shows up to Maddie’s school completely tanked (after a power-hour lunch meeting with a potential client), but the principal doesn’t have her arrested on the spot as it would happen in real life. We learn that Kate’s dad is a recovering drug and alcohol abuser, but she continues to drink, and at the Gathering scene, debauchery is on full display. So what the film seems to be saying is that juggalos want to drink and get messed up, but sobriety is cool, too, if that’s your thing.

How do the Insane Clown Posse and their fans, the juggalos, factor in? Well, Maddie is young and trying to figure out who she wants to be. She meets a young juggalo boy a little older than her at a gas station. They strike up a friendship, and he brings her into the “family” of juggalos. When she runs away, Kate, her brother, sister-in-law, and the karate sensei all have to make their way into the Gathering of the Juggalos to find her. The reason I mention that it picks up at this point is because everything that comes before is just filler. This movie was made with one thing in mind, to propagate the beliefs of this countercultural movement.

Schilling carries the film, and it’s one of her better performances, aside from Orange Is the New Black. Likewise, Kate McKinnon’s few scenes punch up what is otherwise a pretty bland hodgepodge. Overall, the film tries to toe the line between family film and edgy indie fare, but it never really quite gets us where I think both the filmmakers and we as an audience want it to go.