Review by Pamela Zoslov
Loosely adapted from the 2006 Swiss
film Mon frère se marie,
the movie has a familiar La Cage aux Folles premise:
a family enacts a social charade to deceive prospective in-laws. In
the original Swiss movie, a divorced couple and their alienated
children fake familial happiness to deceive the mother of their
Vietnamese foster son. The Hollywood version has DeNiro and Keaton as
Don and Ellie, a long-divorced couple, pretend they're still married
for the sake of the devoutly Catholic birth mother (Patricia Rae) of
their Colombian-born adopted son Alejandro (played, via politically
incorrect Central Casting, by British actor Ben Barnes). Apart from the chauvinism of portraying a Colombian woman as
a rosary-fondling rustic named Madonna, the film sins
against comedy by failing to develop its farcical theme. The
direction is slack and listless: a climactic scene under the
wedding reception tent, in which the characters hurl around vicious accusations and
scandalous revelations, is so limp it feels like rehearsal outtakes.
The
script by Zackham, the writer known for THE BUCKET LIST,
expends considerable screen time setting up the family members'
stories. De Niro, a successful sculptor and ex-alcoholic, is shacking
up in the couple's huge house with sensible, sexy caterer Bebe
(Sarandon), who angrily takes off in her red convertible when the
fake-marriage plan is announced. Don and Ellie's daughter Lyla, a lawyer, has split
from her husband and – oh so tragic! – can't have children. Her
brother, Jared (Topher Grace), is a Harvard-educated doctor and 29-year-old virgin.
Alejandro is engaged to Missy (saucer-eyed ubiquity Amanda Seyfried),
daughter of cartoonish rich bigots Barry and Muffin (David Rasche
and Christine Ebersole). Robin Williams shows up as a reformed-drunk
priest who counsels the engaged couple against the premarital sex
they've already had. Colombian mom Madonna speaks no English but
wisely understands all. Taking
a plane for the first time in her life, birth mom Madonna brings along on the
visit her sexy daughter Nuria (Ana Aroya), who sets her eye on Doctor
Virgin.
The
pretend marriage provides the opportunity for Don and Ellie to
revisit happier times -- including an earth-shaking “boink” for
old times' sake – and Lyla to reconnect with her despised dad,
Jared the opportunity to lose his cherry in an quasi-incestuous
coupling, and a whole lot of other uninteresting things. We can
understand why Lyla might dislike Don, because De Niro here is in his
disgusting-old-coot mode, with uncombed long gray hair, and the
script furnishes him with foul-mouthed dialogue about cunnilingus and
Viagra and lines like “I'll tweeze his balls off!” Why two
attractive women are fighting over this guy is a perplexing mystery,
alongside how a sculptor of Rodin-manqué figures suitable for garden
décor got rich enough to build that huge mansion and send his kid to
Harvard.
Strangely,
the movie is at its best in more serious moments, as when
Robin Williams' Father Monighan counsels Ellie, “Just because
you're divorced doesn't mean you're legally required to hate each
other,” or when Don reveals his emotional vulnerability in a quiet
conversation with his daughter. But as a comedy, it's remarkably substandard.
Farce requires a deft directorial touch that Zackham seems to lack,
and that's something all the marquee names in Hollywood can't fix. 1.5 out of 4 stars.
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