The Intervention doesn't play around with its familiar format enough to get too excited about it.

Despite her script's omissions - we learn little about where these affluent people come from, their occupations or how they know one another - Ms. DuVall juggles the emotional dynamics with fluid editing and light comic touches.

The script wobbles between heavy-handed and touching, but the result is a pleasantly nostalgic throwback that's saved from its copy-cat tendencies by charismatic actors.

In an homage to Jamie Babbitt’s But I’m A Cheerleader, Duvall and Lyonne play girlfriends, so you can almost call it a spiritual sequel to that sapphic classic.