BEFORE: It's the end of the road for Nicole Kidman today, as she carries over again from "The Stepford Wives", but I'm already set up for the next chain, thanks to the other actor who carries over, and that's going to help me get a film off my list next time, one that's been there way too long, thanks to it's near un-linkabliity.
Thanksgiving's coming up fast, I've got my parents coming to town like they did last year, so I've already got the dinner reservation in place, and then we'll be on a fast sprint to Christmas, so next I've got to start thinking about shopping for presents and getting my holiday mix CD made.
THE PLOT: A brother and sister return to their family home in search of their world-famous parents who have disappeared.
AFTER: This is a weird one, though it touches on some of the themes I've already been exploring this year, with a lot of adult children having interactions with their parents, be they absent or straying fathers, neurotic or overprotective mothers, and then of course their screwed-up children, who are now screwed-up adults. And true to form, there are a lot of flashbacks here, showing the kids at various ages trying to survive with these mixed-up parents in a mixed-up world, but I think I have to allow it here because all the time-jumping seems to serve a purpose, namely to slowly clue us in about who these parents were and what this family was all about.
The parents turn out to be performance artists, rather than con artists, which in some cases seems to be worse, because at least con artists would have a solid motivation for tricking people, namely to separate them from their money. But these people are tricking people just to make video art, and I'm not sure that's really even a thing, like I've never heard about performance artists who involved their children in their pieces. I mean, this would have been before the YouTube generation, at a time when people were making home movies just to preserve memories, not to confound everyone at the bank or in a public park. I'm not sure I even understand the video prank that the Fangs pulled at the bank, like I don't see what point they were trying to make or what larger purpose it served. I kept expecting them to rob the bank, only they didn't, they just wanted to make art disguised as a bank robbery. Huh?
Any comedy has to have at least one foot in reality, like even "The Stepford Wives" had a solid jumping-off point, which was the battle between the sexes and a feminist fear of losing control and becoming subservient. But there's no foundation here, therefore I don't see how anyone got this story to where it is, like what is the origin of the idea here? The same goes for the piece with the fake coupons for chicken sandwiches, like what was the goal, what did they set out to prove? By the way, this little scam would never have played out like this, so I have to call a NITPICK POINT. Any employee at a fast-food chain would be keenly aware of what promotions would currently be going on, so there's no way a server would mistake a phony coupon for a real one. Sorry. This goes double for the manager, he would have known immediately that a coupon was phony. It's a little interesting that the scammer here got scammed, because he intended to cause a riot or at least ill will among the customers, and instead found that the staff was TOO accommodating, so he himself was caught unaware and had to punt, and cause the disruption himself. I just don't see things playing out like this in reality.
And then we come to the final "piece", where the Fang parents disappear, and seem to have met a tragic end at the hands of some killer that finds his victims at rest stops. That much I can believe, but then the question becomes - can a pair of performance artists, known for tricking people, just disappear, or is this also another one of their tricks? And if it is a trick, then what purpose does that serve, allowing people, including their own children, to believe that they're dead? We eventually do get an answer, but I'm just not sure that it's enough. So it's right down the middle today, nothing that really stood out as offensive or grating, but nothing really thrilling or extraordinary, either.
Also starring.Jason Bateman (last seen in "The Gift"), Christopher Walken (also carrying over from "The Stepford Wives"), Maryann Plunkett (last seen in "The Squid and the Whale"), Kathryn Hahn (last seen in "The Do-Over"), Harris Yulin (last seen in "The Emperor's Club"), Taylor Rose, Mackenzie Brooke Smith, Kyle Donnery, Jack McCarthy, Jason Butler Harner (last seen in "Blackhat"), Frank Harts, Josh Pais (last seen in "I Saw the Light"), Grainger Hines (last seen in "Lincoln"), Robbie Tann, Michael Chernus (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)", Gabriel Ebert (last seen in "Ricki and the Flash"), Eddie Mitchell, Patrick Mitchell, Linda Emond (last seen in "North Country"), Scott Shepherd (last seen in "Hostiles"), Charlie Saxton.
RATING: 5 out of 10 spud guns
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