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 WAUKESHA
- “Parental Guidance,” the Billy Crystal-Bette Midler movie
that opened Christmas Day, won’t likely win any Oscars.
But the film
is hard to dislike. It’s got appealing adult actors, three cute
kid co-stars, a plot that (despite predictable elements) will keep
your interest and a topic (grandparents raising grandkids) likely
to resonate with many viewers.
The
grandparents, Artie and Diane Becker, are played by Crystal and
Midler. The child rearing they do lasts but a week, while daughter
Alice (Marisa Tomei) and son-in-law Phil Simmons (Tom Everett
Scott) take a business trip. The Atlanta residence the Simmonses
temporarily turn over to their California elders is, as Phil the
inventor proudly points out, “a fully automated house.” That
means the place has been programmed to, for instance, alert
occupants to emergencies via intercom (“Toilet overflowing,
bathroom flooded”).
The Beckers,
especially Artie, are technologically inept. They’re not very
conversant with contemporary parenting-teaching-coaching
practices, either. But what adult would want to be conversant with
the notion of never saying “don’t” to a youngster or the
idea of banning strikeouts from Little League baseball games?
Then again,
baseball is something for which Artie has a real affinity. He’s
a veteran minor league play-by-play announcer and has long dreamed
of being promoted to the San Francisco Giants. In one scene (a
debatable digression, but one that will enthrall baseball buffs),
Artie plays for a grandson (Joshua
Rush) a recording of broadcaster Russ Hodges’ famed
description of the home run that won a pennant for the Giants in
1951. Director Andy Fickman supplements Hodges’ call with
vintage video footage.
A wrinkle in
the film’s baseball-and-Artie subplot, one that underscores his
child rearing conservatism, is the fact he’s recently been fired
from baseball announcing due to a complete unfamiliarity with
social media. In one of the film’s funnier lines, Artie attempts
to keep his job by promising his boss, “I’ll tweet! I’ll
make whatever noise you want.”
There are more
serious lines worth repeating, spoken as the seven relatives move
toward becoming a true extended family. “You know what
grandparenting is?” Diane rhetorically asks Artie. “A second
chance.” Diane proceeds to tell Alice that “there’s no such
thing” as a perfect parent. “Get ready. It’s gonna get a lot
worse,” Artie warns Alice regarding his granddaughter’s
fast-approaching adolescence. “We leave and she’s 12; we come
home and she’s 16,” Alice disapprovingly declares of the same
tween (Bailee Madison) after a week of the Beckers’ supervision.
“Parental
Guidance” could’ve benefited from removal of a few scenes that
are hackneyed or in poor taste: Crystal’s character hit with a
bat in the spot a fellow least wants to be hit, a food fight
(which actually generates a pretty good Artie line: “Look at
this place. We’re gonna have to call FEMA”), urinating and
vomiting bits.
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