However, along comes Parental Guidance, a film that decides to poke fun at the idea that parents have become soft. They worry too much about their children's feelings and forget to actually discipline and parent their children.
The film follows controlling parents, Alice (Marisa Tomei) and Phil Simmons (Tom Everett Scott) who have three children; the talented musician, Harper (Bailee Madison), the son with a speech impediment, Turner (Joshua Rush) and the weird youngest boy, Barker (Kyle Harrison Breitkopf). While Alice and Phil are extremely busy with their work lives, they still manage to just about squeeze in time to parent their three children. However, when Phil suggests that they go on a private holiday and leave the children in the care of grandparents, Dianne (Bette Midler) and Artie Decker (Billy Crystal), Alice has problems letting go of the reigns of control. What follows is a "crazy" and somewhat touching journey of discovery where the children learn that they can have fun and that Alice actually has to let go a little bit in order to become a 'better Mom'.
While Parental Guidance tries to find some new ground in the well worn family comedy sub-genre, it still fails to feel fresh. To be quite frank, the 'U' certificate that the film has plumped for ('U' standing for Universal, which means suitable for all) has arguably ended up harming the film. I say this, because a good family film should have the gross-out gags for the children, but also the subtle innuendos to entertain the parents - with a 'U' certificate, Parental Guidance arguably fails to entertain the elders by completely bypassing the subtle adult humour and hitting crude sight gags head on.
As a result, the set-up to the film at the beginning is a bit of a mess. The most jarring thing at the beginning is that characters do not feel properly set-up - the only characters with a true sense of any kind of problem are the children. Parents Alice and Phil just don't seem to be truely "modern" parents who care too much about their children's feelings more than disciplining them - they have stock phrases like, "Use your words!" instead of saying, "No!" to their children, but other than that there is no sense that these parents are stiff and uptight. It almost felt like their characters should be extreme in order for more comedy and to make their character arc more defined. Likewise, the Grandparents are supposed to be these weird, kooky relatives that you want to hide away, until you have to talk to them. To be frank, Dianne and Artie Decker seemed like really nice people and the kind of Grandma and Grandad that you really wouldn't mind having to visit. As such, when Alice has such a hard time agreeing to let them look after their children, it felt forced.
However, where Parental Guidance gets it right is that the film has heart. Much like Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire, which have a heartfelt message to tell, Parental Guidance gets its schmaltzy family-values message across in it's third act - largely thanks to the children characters. We see the strange Barker finally let go of his imaginary friend in a poignant funeral for him in the back garden. Then there's Turner who overcomes his speech impediment thanks to Artie's obsession with commentating on Baseball. Then finally, there's Harper who is finally allowed to be a young girl, make friends and actually stay at her new school (rather than moving around all the time.) It's the scene between Mother and Daughter at the end, when Alice finally let's go of the reigns and allows Harper to step down from her musical school audition (so she can stay at her regular High School where she is finally making friends) that really steals the show - for a film that largely relied on messy sight gags, it was a welcome release of emotion at the end.
So, if you're going into Parental Guidance expecting the next big Mrs Doubtfire family film, then you will be sadly disappointed. It's a bit of a mess of a film that finally starts to get it right round about the mid-way point. However, the messy start and complete ignorance of it's older audience that sadly lets the film down greatly.
**/*****
