I'm not sure about the Payne/Taylor comparison (they're credited as Executive Producers), because, as genius.switch has pointed out, there's a certain distance that I felt from these characters which I'd say isn't prevalent in a Payne movie.

I at least felt something for Miles and Jack, for Jim and Tracy Flick, for Warren Schmidt. I just couldn't bring myself to care for the characters here. Sure, as a person who has and will be confronting their parents' mortality I certainly could *relate* to their predicament, but ultimately I didn't care how things turned out. I didn't *feel* one way or the other about these cats, and I really, really wanted to. I wanted to *feel*, man!

I guess what I'm really saying is that imo, it just took way too long for the transformation to real adulthood to happen to these characters. I wonder how much more interesting the story would have been if, say, (SPOILER) the dad dies an hour in, instead of an hour and 20 minutes in.

I *will* grant you that the characters here are *realer* than a handful of those in the Payne movies (cmon, man, Sideways wasn't about them rednecks!), but that's about it, though.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the performances, they felt real and all, but I wonder what would have happened had they been given a better story to work with. I guess. *shrugs*
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Magnificent Trident