Andy Brewster, going on a cross-country trip to try to sell the non-toxic cleaning product he developed, invites his mother to join him.

He visits his mother, Joyce Brewster, in New Jersey before leaving on a cross-country trip to Las Vegas, lying that a pitch to K-Mart went well so she will not worry.

While there, she reveals that he was named after Andrew Margolis, a boy she fell in love with in Florida, who she hoped would object to her marriage with Andy's father.

Joyce, who has not been in a relationship since Andy's dad died years before, balks at the offer, so Ben merely leaves his number and asks her to call if she reconsiders.

In Las Vegas, Joyce has such a good time that she suggests Andy leave her while he visits San Francisco, forcing him to reveal that he chose the city so she could meet Andrew Margolis.

Seeing Joyce, he takes her advice by talking about family safety, and drinking a large amount of it to prove his product will not harm children.

Afterwards, they part ways at the San Francisco Airport: Andy to make his next sales pitch and Joyce back to New Jersey, where she arranges a date with Ben Graw.

"I've met her only a couple of times so far but she's really funny and nice and really reminds me a lot of my actual mother, which is very odd; my girlfriend's like a huge Barbra Streisand fan."

The website's critical consensus states: "Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand have enough chemistry to drive a solidly assembled comedy; unfortunately, The Guilt Trip has a lemon of a script and is perilously low on comedic fuel.

[10] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B−" on scale of A to F.[11] Mary Pols of Time stated, "The Guilt Trip works because we all know and like a Joyce Brewster (or dozens of them)".

[12] At the 33rd Golden Raspberry Awards, Streisand was nominated for Worst Actress, where she lost to Kristen Stewart for both Snow White and the Huntsman and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.