Parental Guidance (**1/2)

This family comedy put me off immediately by having the main character, Sacramento baseball announcer Artie (Billy Crystal), mock a woman’s looks in front of a stadium full of people. He’s fired after the game, not for this act of humiliation, but for not being technologically hip. In the scheme of the movie: 1) this appears to be the first time his employer has ever mentioned that this is a problem; 2) Artie has possibly never even heard of Twitter, and possibly does not have a cell phone (I assume this because otherwise a later plot point makes no sense); 3) after determining that Artie has no technological awareness, his boss would ask him who is favorite angry bird is;  4) someone (the boss), anyone, would utter the line “Everyone has a favorite angry bird.” Really?  This sort of iCarly-level level of subtlety (in writing and acting) is par for the course, at least in the first half of the movie, which then concerns Artie and his wife (Bette Midler) traveling to Atlanta as emergency babysitters for their grandkids, to whom they are not close. The story clumsily wavers between portraying the kids’ parents, but mostly the mom (Marisa Tomei), as crazy helicopter parents whose style conflicts with Artie’s way of doing things and portraying Artie as the crazy one, while trying to make both of them sympathetic. They are, mostly, but much of this feels terribly artificial.

 

At one point, the two grandparents marvel at their daughter’s ability to remember that “Book of Love” is  their favorite song. How can she remember that? She was three or four years old. It’s unexplained why she wouldn’t have heard the song after that. (The scene does provide the opportunity for Midler and Crystal to do an acapella duet of the 1958 hit.) We’re also supposed to believe Artie didn’t know his daughter had worked for ESPN for five years and didn’t know his grandson’s name, even though he’d seen them less than a year before. Artie’s daughter is supposed to never have mentioned to her husband that Artie signs off every game by saying her name. And his granddaughter fake-laughs at Artie’s joke in a way I have seen many times in sitcoms but never in real life, because in real life it would appear as obviously false to the joke teller as to everyone else.

 

If your inclination upon reading this is to say, it’s just a movie, you may view this as the “feel-good” comedy I heard one middle-aged woman describe it as upon exiting the theater. Crystal and Midler make a surprisingly believable couple, and when the film doesn’t strain for laughs—and most of the laughs are strained—it becomes a decent family drama. In the real world, of course, tension between grandparenting and parenting styles (Artie’s problem) and between attention to spouse and attention to the kids (his daughter’s) are real issues, and the movie’s attempt to address them is worthwhile. Still, the primary appeal will be to those still requiring parental guidance.

 

IMDb link

 

viewed 12/13/12 at Rave UPenn; posted 1/28/13