The Joneses

Writer-director Derrick Borte’s self-delighted quasi-satire of stealth marketing in McMansionland gives us Demi Moore, David Duchovny, Amber Heard and Ben Hollingsworth as a too-perfect family assembled by corporate operatrix Lauren Hutton to sew the seeds of lifestyle-envy in their gated suburb. But then they start wanting more from life than work as walking catalogs. Adapted from story by Randy T. Dinzler, Borte’s freshman feature struggles a little with a surfeit of cheeseball soundtrack pop and a gradual failure of nerve. Even with decent turns from the leads, and a usefully soulful one from Gary Cole as a neighbor inclined to do the proverbial keeping up, the film can’t always manage to justify itself as an actual movie instead of merely a clever concept.