Screenwriter Guidance Suggested

MR. MOM (1983)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When "Mr. Mom" ended, I felt a certain emptiness. Ostensibly a comedy-drama about a married couple with one partner laid off while the other is forced to work, the movie is a mildly comical trifle, an innocuous film that treats its subject matter with far too much innocence. And yet, even for its early 1980's timeline, I am sure most audiences watched this film and said, "Eh, I have been thru that and it is much harder work." The urgency is missing in "Mr. Mom" because the film is a cartoonish comedy, not a real-life evocation in the form of a solid comedy-drama but hey, the movies glamorize just about everything.

Follow me on this simplistic tale. Michael Keaton is Jack, a Detroit car engineer fired by his company, or more appropriately, laid off to save money. He is married to Caroline (Teri Garr, always appealing) who, once she discovers that her hubby is unemployed, decides to pursue her dream of working in advertising. Caroline is trying to help a tuna company sell its expensive product to regain its profits - her radical idea is to reduce the price of tuna by half. This delights the CEO which I found hard to swallow.

Meanwhile Jack is Mr. Mom, a stay-at-home dad who is struggling to find an engineer job. No surprise that hiring is practically nil in Detroit in the early 1980's when car manufacturers started belly-flopping. So Jack watches three kids who make a mess of the house while the vacuum cleaner operates on its own, the washer acts up thanks to Dad mixing powdered laundry detergent with the liquid detergent, burns breakfast for the kids in the kitchen, and plays card games with Caroline's female friends. Oh, he grows a beard and lays low in the couch all day fantasizing about a soap-opera love affair with one sizzling friend of Caroline's (Ann Jillian). Before you know it, thanks to Bill Conti's rousing "Rocky" score, Jack becomes a fastidious Mr. Mom, cleaning the house top and bottom and making fantastic candlelit dinners while Caroline is working long hours and never makes it home in time for a meal. Do you see where this is going?

"Mr. Mom" is a laid-back, respectable enough comedy but it fails at being a comedy of manners. Michael Keaton does not milk the role for wildness and true comic fervor the way Chevy Chase might. The film needs a real dose of adrenaline as well, never quite going the extra mile. It plays it far too safe and although the main performances by Keaton and Teri Garr are sincere enough, the movie doesn't feel like it is enough. The foreseeable ending makes one wish that the whole screenplay by John Hughes was rewritten with more genuine heart than the slight pathos of a TV sitcom. "Mr. Mom" (a great title) never really cuts loose.