Barbra Streisand doesn’t make the grand scale movies (“The Way We Were,” “Yentl”) as in the past, but she still can be an amusing, interesting actress who’s enjoyable to watch.

In “The Guilt Trip,” she plays Mom to Seth Rogen’s character. He’s a young scientist with a spiffy new cleaning product that he is about to take on a cross-country marketing trip to pitch major retailers and HSN to sell in their stores. Problem is that he really doesn’t know how to brand or position his product. His sales pitches are as interesting as reading the white pages.

What she doesn’t know is that Rogen’s character invited her because he wants to find out what happened to his divorced Mom’s first great love, who he thinks is currently living in San Francisco, the last stop on his sales trip.

“The Guilt Trip” is really a very simple movie that grows on you as you watch it. It turns out to really be mostly Streisand’s character’s story as we slowly see some depth in the woman she plays. Streisand also walks the thin line playing a Mom who can be funny more than she is annoying. There are a lot of light laughs in this movie. The script has a very warm resolution.

It’s good to see Streisand in something other than “Meet the Fokkers.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1694020/