I’m proud to report that crotch-bashing is still alive and well! Phew AmIright? I mean, I would have guessed that in the year 2023, we would have exhausted every ounce of humor attached to a grown man taking a projectile to his gentals, but NO! There’s more! We’re not above that at all. Oh, thank goodness, because writing jokes is hard! You have to consider and observe and report and experiment. What a relief to know that a good-old-fashioned kick to the balls will still treat an audience, now won’t it?
Welcome to the world of About My Father, a sort-of reverse Meet the Parents take (here, Robert DeNiro is the one playing the character under the microscope, not peering into it). The important part to note in this film is that whenever the writers (which included the star of the film, Sebastian Maniscalco) hit a roadblock, somebody hit the poop emoticon.
For example:
In one scene, the titular father is at an expensive country club for the very first time (he’s a guest of our hero’s would-be in-laws). The place is so highbrow, the dining room menus don’t have prices … now q question for the writers at home: What do we do to demonstrate anxiety about the imbalance of power? A. Have the counter-culture brother talk about his bowel movements.
In the next scene, our would-be hero is playing doubles tennis partnered with his potential mother-in-law. He wants to impress his MIL without humiliating his potential FIL across the net. Writers, what do we do here? A. Snotty brother takes a tennis ball to the crotch.
Deep. Deep. Deep comedy.
The basic premise in About My Father is that two middle-aged “youngsters,” Sebastian (Maniscalco) and Ellie (Leslie Bibb) have fallen in love, but are from different worlds. Blue-blooded Ellie has invited blue-collar Sebastian and his potentially problematic father (DeNiro) to her family’s expensive country club lifestyle for a July 4 holiday weekend. A classic, if wholly contrived, fish-out-of-water scenario that doesn’t lack for structure problems, the biggest one being the couple are both pushing 50. There’s a big difference between a 20 year-old asking potential in-laws for their approval and a 50 year-old doing the same. The difference is one makes sense (kinda) and the other doesn’t.
The next biggest issue is the title suggests the father is the potential embarrassment, but Sebastian proves far more problematic than his obdurate and regressive father. The film finds plenty of ways for both to embarrass Ellie’s family – who have their own problems, too, of course.
After these issues are exhausted then, and only then, do we get to the part where bathroom humor rules the day. Now I’m not saying this film wasn’t entertaining from time-to-time. There’s a father-son
cologne application sashay routine that doesn’t quite sell the film by itself, but I could easily see it becoming a meme. The comedy never lasts, however; as soon as the film has amused, it goes straight into bathroom humor again.
And if we’re going to make the obvious film comparison, I can’t even say I was wild about Meet the Parents. I understand parental approval for marriage is a thing … but it’s kind of an outdated thing. And even were it not outdated, it would prove irrelevant once the parties proved insane or godawful old. I never understood in Meet the Parents why would one care for the approval of a man who would put you through a lie detector test? You don’t wear a wire while courting. Similarly, Ellie’s family has three middle-aged adult children, none of whom are married. At this point, there shouldn’t be a question of “will you allow us to marry?” as “what is wrong with your family that this has never come up before?”
I won’t call About My Father a disaster, per se, but it is much closer to the pan side of the rating spectrum.
An Italian son and his pa
Play nice for the mother-in-law
Yet fate often calls
Then gets hit in the balls
The conclusion: bah-dah-bing bah-dah-blah
Rated PG-13, 90 Minutes
Director: Laura Terruso
Writer: Austen Earl, Sebastian Manisalco
Genre: Films for the tasteless
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Do you like “kicked in the groin” humor?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Do you like “kicked in the groin” humor?
