Parental Guidance: The Sorry Laugh

I actually had hopes for Parental Guidance because of Billy Crystal’s excellent comedic timing. However, it takes much more than a good leading man for a movie to shine. With mediocre acting from the entire cast except Billy Crystal and Bette Midler, this movie suffered from predictable dialogue and lukewarm character development. The only element that was semi-entertaining was its satire of new age parenting, portrayed as coddling children with organic diets and utilizing circuitous, euphemistic language. It staged a cringeworthy and over-the-top battle between the old versus the current generation on how to prepare the future children. Falling back on overdone archetypes and making both the old and new generations look ridiculous, I can’t this movie doing overly well at the box office.

 After thirty-five years of broadcasting for the Fresno Grizzlies, a minor league baseball team, Artie Decker (Billy Crystal) is laid off because he tells old school jokes and stories, and apparently has no idea about young people’s interests. He’s too out of touch for the hip broadcasting world. Despondent and restless, Artie feels the world collapsing on him when his lovable wife, Diane (Bette Midler), agrees to take care of their three estranged grandchildren while their estranged only daughter, Alice (Marisa Tomei), and her successful husband Phil (Tom Everett Scott) go on vacation to celebrate receiving an award. Alice and Phil are Type A yuppies who encourage their children to “use their words” to express their anger and feed them organic, gluten and MSG-free food. Sugar is not allowed in this house, as they fear that the children will transform into hyperactive monsters. Artie faces the challenge of dealing with his three grandchildren: an overachieving violinist, a shy boy with a speech impediment, and one who dearly clings on to his imaginary kangaroo friend. Their house is overrun by technology, such as a software program that makes cereal for the kids and checks for adult supervision. Diane is determined to become closer to her grandchildren, especially after realizing that they have become the less favored pair of grandparents.

Unfortunately these children just don’t have the slightest respect for their grandparents, who are perfectly nice, albeit old-fashioned, people. The violinist child, Harper (Bailee Madison), warms up to Diane, who encourages her to consider what she wants out of life. Turner (Joshua Rush), probably the most sympathetic one, receives speech therapy for his stammer and is bullied at school.  The youngest, Barker (Kyle Harrison Breitkopf), is quite a handful. He constantly pushes the boundaries and displaces all the blame onto his imaginary kangaroo friend. Artie and Diane’s parenting style is rooted in discipline, old-school fun and games, and love and guidance. But it collides with Alice’s helicopter parenting style where she caters to her children’s preferences. Artie can sometimes be too much as well, representing the archetypical entitled, old grandparent who is quick to challenge the rules of the house. The old and new must find a compromise, a safe middle ground that works best for the children.

What makes this generic squabble between parent and child even more tiresome is that we never get an insight into Alice’s disdain for her parents. Her only genuine grievance towards her father is that he forgot to pick her up from school a couple of times. Like her children, she seems rather entitled and has to learn to be grateful for her father, who essentially tames her eccentric children. If there was anything even semi-significant in the past, I might have considered analyzing a conflict and resolution, but there wasn’t even a genuine conflict to be resolved in the first place. She seems to be embarrassed about her parents for very little reason. Billy Crystal’s Artie can be self-absorbed and set in his ways, but his character seems a lot more fleshed out—he is a forcibly retired elderly man who must struggle to fit into a confusing world of entitled young people. The only subplot that was remotely heartwarming featured Artie helping Turner overcome his stammer and find his voice.

The jokes aren’t especially funny either. I did that laugh that I do when I feel sorry or embarrassed for the creators and performers. They tried to induce momentary laughter by putting in some jokes about old people not understanding X-Games (Who cares about the X-Games these days?) or social media networks (Artie’s boss grills him on his proficiency, or lack thereof, in Twitter and Facebook). The creators may have been shooting for slapstick comedy, but it wasn’t good slapstick, and there wasn’t enough of it to justifiably call this thing a solid comedic movie. Also missing: good character development, genuine humor, and actual conflict. The ending, which aimed for syrupy sweetness to make up for its painful moments, promoted the formulaic message of family always coming first before anything else.

All in all, I was disappointed, and that is unfortunate since I usually enjoy most family comedies, even if they tend to be a tad formulaic. I enjoyed the performances of Bette Midler and Billy Crystal, as they make a charming, comedic old couple together. Crystal’s excellent comedic timing couldn’t even save this horrible script, but he basically keeps this film afloat. Midler’s character is not given as much room, but she shines in every single scene. Everyone else’s performances were at best mediocre and rather forgettable. This movie most definitely targets older individuals. I would recommend that people wait to see this movie until it comes out on DVD. For those that love comedies with generational conflicts and Billy Crystal, they may enjoy this movie.