Adam Sandler takes the lead in addressing a vital social issue.
In this latest movie, we’re confronted with the saga of a thirteen-year-old father attempting to reconnect with the son he raised from infancy. A new more thoughtful Sandler is unafraid to place his social conscience on display like longhorns on the hood of a VW Jetta.
Two directors, Sean Anders and John Morris, were needed to handle this delicate subject with dignity and finesse.
They worked from a touchingly subtle script by Ken Marino and David Wain.
This comedy-drama follows the emotional blowback encountered by Donny (Adam Sandler) when he attempts to re-enter the life of his adult son, Todd (Andy Samberg), whom he haphazardly brought up.
Of course, the timing could not be worse.
Todd is about to marry his sweetheart (Leighton Meester) who loathes her beau’s coarse dad.
To quote a popular industry phrase, this is the point where ‘hijinx ensue’.
But this tale offers more than bathroom jokes and funny scenes involving sexual disease. It also has a big heart containing blood, flowing through big veins.
An interesting sidebar: according to set gossip, the story originally involved a man—Sandler—who was raised by a manatee. As a result, he can only work in and around salt water. But when he is fired from Sea World and moves to Phoenix ‘hijinx ensue.’
But the project was drastically rewritten after the manatee’s agent demanded his client have name over title.
In any event, Donny throws son Todd a bachelor party at a strip club where a fat hooker shoots tennis balls out of her intimate organ. But in the midst of this bawdy celebration, father and son exit. Seeking answers to their estrangement, they elect to enter Reikkian therapy that very night.
This all-encompassing Japanese healing art is generally treated for laughs—the healer is a large-breasted woman (Xela Howard)—but her sharp insights are universal in their application to sundered relationships.
Naturally, as Donny and Todd leave, the healer shoots tennis balls out of her intimate organ.
Other scenes involve even more intense therapy and raunch. They set the table for an ending that is emotionally satisfying even if it features a bride farting in her wedding dress all the way down the aisle.
As credits roll, we’re left renewed by the healing possibilities of psychology. We emerge from the cinema stronger persons, not just emotionally, but physically as well.
Emma Barber performed gracefully under no pressure as DGA trainee.
A well merited four stars for rejecting the manatee angle.
Oddly enough, this film is a prequel to Alien.
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