There’s no taste like ham for the holidays, and that’s the prevailing flavor in “Love the Coopers,” writer-director Jessie Nelson’s Christmas family reunion movie. It’s sort of a mashup of “Home for the Holidays,” “Love Actually,” and some minor Cameron Crowe movie that’s sprawling, awkward and contrived, yet brimming with goodwill toward men.
Diane Keaton and John Goodman play Charlotte and Sam, a four-decade couple putting off divorce to fake one last perfect Yule for their imperfect clan. Their daughter Eleanor (Olivia Wilde) a bitter liberal pill, picks up a kindly right-wing GI named Joe (Jake Lacy) to take to Christmas dinner as her ersatz date, because she can’t bear the “antici-pointment” of waiting to see her mom’s judgmental disapproval over her brittle, barren ways.