Opening this week: ‘Family’

“Family”

**

(Not rated, 1:23)

“Family” is a predictable comedy: A no-nonsense career woman with no life and no heart discovers what’s important after being forced to take care of her loner, outcast 11-year-old niece.

But what makes it stand out are two things: a terrific performance from Taylor Schilling as the uptight Kate Stone; and its inclusion of the face-painted Juggalos, the often derided subculture that’s grown up around the hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse, as the portal through which Kate bonds with her charge, Maddie (Bryn Vale).

Kate’s brother (Eric Edelstein) asks her to watch Maddie while he places his mother-in-law into a hospice. Kate has no parenting skills at all, especially when it comes to someone like Maddie.

Then Maddie meets Dennis (Fabrizio Zacharee Guido) in a convenience store. He turns out to be a Juggalo who goes by the nickname of Baby Joker. He’s the first person to see the real Maddie underneath her difficult shell.

Of course, this doesn’t sit well with Kate at first, though she has other worries, like the younger and more competent workmate who wants her job and the overly fastidious neighbor (a funny Kate McKinnon).

“Family” is rarely laugh-out-loud funny, and it could be knocked for perpetuating the idea that a woman has to maximize her maternal instincts to find happiness. But it has a good-natured charm.