I can’t speak for everyone out there but I think that most of you will be able to feel better about your family life after seeing this film. Featuring almost every potential parental conundrum of the 1980s, Parenthood is an interesting pill to swallow. Director Ron Howard delivers a kind of flipside to the John Hughes 80s teen coming-of-age flick with a look at the parents of the 80s- those poor souls who grew up in the idyllic 60s and 70s that must now deal with their Hughesian archetypal children and the insanity of the 80s.
What happens to Baby Boomers who grow up hating their parents, determined to never turn out like them? Why, they become just like them of course! This is the dilemma facing Gil Buckman (Steve Martin), a sales executive who is slowly coming to terms with the fact that he is every bit as distant and detached from his son as his own father was from him. But Gil’s not the only member of the Buckman clan with issues. His sister Helen (Dianne West) is single mother of two forced to deal with her daughter’s pregnancy and her son’s emotional issues. His other sister, Susan (Harley Kozak) is married to a control freak (Rick Moranis) who’s trying to force prodigious ability from their young daughter. Then there is Larry (Tom Hulce), the black sheep of the family who only comes back home when he needs help paying back gambling debts and business deals gone wrong.
Talk about your family reunions from hell, right? To be fair, there is at least one rational-minded member of the Buckman family. Susan is perfectly normal; she just married a guy with issues. Unfortunately, she gets very little of the focus in this film. Her contributions do help balance things out as a sort of voice of reason, but the rest of the film whips you around from one face-palming scenario to another. Maybe some families out there are really like this. I know my fair share of eccentric clans but this one hits a few too many crisis points for me to fully swallow it.
Maybe all the drama pumped into this film was over the top when it hit theaters. Maybe my skepticism is a byproduct of growing up in a post-Hughes film world. Whatever the cause, I, and I’m sure others, doubt the likelihood of so many issues plaguing one family. Kudos to the writers for doing their best to maintain a sense of balance amidst all of the characters in this film. Major props also go their way for keeping each character consistent throughout the film but also finding room for (almost) everyone to grow.
There is also some very solid acting in this film. Keanu Reeves plays the same kind of character he portrays in all his films up until The Matrix, but just about everyone else does a good job of coming off as authentic as possible. Savvy viewers will note a young Joaquin Phoenix in the mix, doing a fine job as a troubled child of divorce. The adults and children alike are all on top of their game. The only trouble is that Parenthood is fine when broken down into individual performance but, as a sum of its parts, it feels overloaded.
Steve Martin fans might come away feeling underwhelmed by this film. It ranks among his blandest offerings in the 80s. He still puts on a little pop and sizzle where it counts though, generating the most non-situational humor Parenthood has to offer. This is a film that does its best to cover everything at once while trying to be as inoffensive as possible. None other than Ron Howard could have pulled off that feat.
The MPAA rating for this film pretty much says it all- PG. PG? A Disney animated film? Really? Watching this film, the rating makes perfect sense but you have to wonder what the Disney crew was thinking. The fantasy genre has always been kind to the House of Mouse but for all its light, fluffy components, The Black Cauldron gets so dark at times that it is no longer recognizable as a Disney film.
Taran is a young assistant pig-keeper in a faraway land. His life changes dramatically one day when the sorcerer Dallban orders him to protect a magical pig. The Horned King seeks the pig because its powers as an oracle will lead him to the legendary Black Cauldron. If the Horned King succeeds in acquiring the cauldron, he will raise an army of undead warriors to destroy all those who oppose his ruthless will. When Taran fails to keep the pig from the Horned King’s minions, he sets out to reclaim the pig and defeat the Horned King if necessary. His path is beset by danger on all sides but a cast of colorful characters help him along his quest.
This is a very strange blend of ridiculously cheesy and dark fantasy. The film is adapted from the first two books in a fantasy series that I’ve never even heard of before. While the source material may have won a few awards back in the 1960s, whatever magic the pages held didn’t make the transfer to film. Maybe if I knew more about Welsh mythology the names wouldn’t all seem so outlandish and silly.
Taran is a fairly milquetoast fantasy lead and his only special quality is his determination. His success is largely due to the people and things around him. This kind of overly lucky hero archetype never sits well with me. Then of course there is Princess Eilonwy, whose appearance looks like an amalgamation of the costumes and features of the best Disney Princesses. The Horned King is menacing and frightening to look at, but his motivation in finding the Black Cauldron is pretty thin and recycled. Maybe it’s the current era’s effect on me, but I need my villains to be more complex than simply trying to take over the world.
The saving grace of this film is the animation. It’s complex, rich in detail and even stunning at times. For such a strange world, the animating staff really creates some immersive work here. That makes it all the more of a shame that this film get dark to the point of being un-Disney. I can appreciate the animation but after 24 films, Disney has crafted a very specific ‘type’ for its products and The Black Cauldron does not fit that type.
Fantasy fans and anglophiles may be more into this film than I am; I don’t know if it was marketed towards any specific demographic. What I do know is that this film could easily stain the reputation of Disney in the minds of unsuspecting parents. There is a reason why this, Disney’s first PG-rated film has been all but forgotten about. Despite my displeasure with some of the 1940s package films, the dark nature of this film makes it the least enjoyable Disney film as of its release in 1985.
I can’t speak for everyone out there but I think that most of you will be able to feel better about your family life after seeing this film. Featuring almost every potential parental conundrum of the 1980s, Parenthood is an interesting pill to swallow. Director Ron Howard delivers a kind of flipside to the John Hughes 80s teen coming-of-age flick with a look at the parents of the 80s- those poor souls who grew up in the idyllic 60s and 70s that must now deal with their Hughesian archetypal children and the insanity of the 80s.
