The Stop Button

I'm trying to find a synonym for genial... excuse me a moment. I like the look of gregarious, but the definition doesn't fit. Convivial is going to be the compromise word. Parenthood is convivial. Somehow, Howard and company manage to convince the viewer to be touched by the movie's events, but not to give them enough thought to realize how contrived and unrealistic the situations get. It's kind of brilliant in a way--Ganz and Mandel don't exactly mature their humor of the early 1980s, but they add parental responsibility to it. To some degree it works. Parenthood is a pleasant, if too long and too saccharine, experience.

But it fails in some special ways. For instance, I think I remembered, while watching, Keanu Reeves's character's name and only because Dianne Wiest says it so many times. The rest of the characters, the names sound kind of familiar, but I could never do a lineup. It's the Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen family or the Dianne Wiest family or the Rick Moranis. Howard cast very recognizable people. The two least recognizable main cast members--Tom Hulce and Harley Jane Kozak, are the only ones recognizable because of their characters. Even so, a lot of the acting is excellent. Wiest, Martin, Steenburgen... actually almost everyone is good. Except Hulce. Hulce is terrible. So's Joaquin Phoenix, showing youth and a different name do not a better actor make. Hulce and Phoenix's scenes get painful at times, taking the onus off Reeves, who isn't good, but at least has a few solid moments. Jason Robards has some great scenes, but the movie--the problem with it--is there aren't enough. There aren't enough scenes with Robards and Martin together, since the movie blames Robards for all of Martin's problems. There aren't enough--really any, the funny grandmother (Helen Shaw is a lot of fun), gets more scenes--with Eileen Ryan. She's mother to main cast, wife to Robards, but takes a backseat to everything. At best, she gets a few extra seconds of screen time being mortified at having an interracial grandkid. At best. There's literally nothing for her to do in the movie, which probably speaks volumes if anyone wants to stop and listen.

Howard's direction is only distinctive in tone--look, he's found a way to make a very special episode of a sitcom into a two hour movie--not in composition, certainly not in direction of actors. Hulce and Phoenix strain the suspension of disbelief, particularly Hulce. Phoenix, though atrocious, at least has the excuse of playing the weakest character in the script. It's cheap and obvious, but passable.

CREDITS

Directed by Ron Howard; screenplay by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, based on a story by Ganz, Mandel and Howard; director of photography, Donald McAlpine; edited by Mike Hill and Daniel P. Hanley; music by Randy Newman; production designer, Todd Hallowell; produced by Brian Grazer; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Steve Martin (Gil Buckman), Dianne Wiest (Helen Buckman), Mary Steenburgen (Karen Buckman), Jason Robards (Frank Buckman), Rick Moranis (Nathan Huffner), Tom Hulce (Larry Buckman), Martha Plimpton (Julie Buckman), Keanu Reeves (Tod Higgins), Harley Jane Kozak (Susan Buckman), Joaquin Phoenix (Garry Buckman-Lampkin), Eileen Ryan (Marilyn Buckman) and Helen Shaw (Grandma).

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• Dan in Real Life (2007, Peter Hedges)
• The Paper (1994, Ron Howard)
• The Lost Boys (1987, Joel Schumacher)
• Dedication (2007, Justin Theroux)
• All the President’s Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)