THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1995 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Shelly Long, Gary Cole, Christine Taylor, Michael McKean. Screenplay: Laurice Elehwany & Rick Copp and Bonnie Turner & Terry Turner. Director: Betty Thomas.
It is official now: I have become everything that I despise. I am of a certain age where my youth has become a marketing tool, re-packaged and returned to me for nostalgic consumption. But those attempts to this point (THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, THE FLINTSTONES) have basically left me unmoved. The Brady Bunch ... now, there's a different story. I grew up with them, and I remember their dopey antics with an inexplicable affection. So the upshot is, they finally got to me. THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE is a movie that most likely was put together by chimps, and I had fun anyway.
As anyone who watched the 1969-1974 series will recall, this is the story of a lovely lady (Carol, played by Shelly Long) who was bringing up three very lovely girls: Marcia (Christine Taylor); Jan (Jennifer Elise Cox); and Cindy (Olivia Hack). Carol is married to a man named Brady (Mike, played by Gary Cole), who previously had been busy with three boys of his own: Greg (Christopher Daniel Barnes); Peter (Paul Sutera); and Bobby (Jesse Lee). The Bradys are still hopelessly mired in the 70s, but around them it is 1995 Los Angeles. They are not only holdouts of an era, they are also holding out against selling their house to next door neighbor Mr. Ditmeyer (Michale McKean), who wants to turn the neighborhood into a mini-mall. Unfortunately, an unexpected tax bill might force the family to move, unless the industrious Brady kids can raise $20,000 in a week.
I think any discussion of THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE must begin with this statement: you had to be there. Familiarity with the series, whether in first run or its endless incarnation in reruns, is essential, since the film is composed almost entirely of bits and pieces of plots from the series. When the audience laughs at Marcia being hit in the face by a football, or Peter's cracking voice, or Greg's attempt to turn himself into rock star Johnny Bravo, it isn't because any of these situations are inherently funny; in fact, they are really fairly inane. But they are so familiar, so much a part of the fabric of growing up in America at a particular time, that watching THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE is like re-discovering an old toy. Even if you realize that it was sort of a stupid toy, you are still going to play with it, and smile while you're doing it.
THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE was going to sink or swim on the basis of casting, and there are both successes and failures. Shelly Long has Florence Henderson's mannerisms down pat as Carol, and Gary Cole is a hoot as he pronounces Brady platitudes with a deadpan solemnity. The dead ringer award goes to Christine Taylor, who looks and sounds so much like original Marcia Maureen McCormick that it is truly frightening. Less impressive are Jennifer Elise Cox, whose slightly unhinged Jan is too reminiscent of Melanie Hutsell's "Saturday Night Live" characterization of Jan, and Henriette Mantel, who does a version of housekeeper Alice which includes pratfalls and, inexplicably, a leather bustier.
There are about equal parts homage and parody in THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE, and both have their moments, but what surprised me most was the way the film managed to recall a simpler time without mockery. When Jan visits a school counselor (played with a leer by RuPaul), it is not entirely a gag that her problem is not a pregnancy, drug abuse or an eating disorder, but simple sibling rivalry. Similarly, when the neighbors eventually rally around the Bradys' stand against the developers, it recalls a time when neighbors actually knew each other. Make no mistake, THE BRADY BUNCH MOVIE is occasionally quite sluggish, and required about a thimbleful of creativity. At the same time, it made me wistful not only for a piece of my youth, but also for an era when families were functional, communities seemed closer, and "Have a Nice Day" was something people actually meant.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Brady kids: 6.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
-- Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | Evelyn.Leeper@att.com
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