Editorial
Front Page - Friday, April 23, 2010
The Critic's Corner
David Laprad
Over the last several years, movie comedies have become too cynical for my taste. It seems the more sneering a comedy is, the more people like it. Case in point: “The Hangover,” a cinematic ode to bachelor parties that was a huge hit in 2009.
What I enjoy are comedies like “I Love You, Man,” which features characters that come across as real people and humor that rises out of everyday situations.
Another problem with movies like “The Hangover” is that they’re all set up and no story. In place of an engaging narrative, audiences are expected to swallow an idiot plotline that relies on coincidence and plows forward without any creativity or originality.
Which brings me to “Date Night,” a new comedy featuring characters that come across as real people, humor that rises out of everyday situations and an idiot plotline that relies on coincidence. I don’t know how to take this movie.
“Date Night” stars Steve Carell and Tina Fey as Phil and Claire Foster, a middle aged married couple with two kids, a mortgage and jobs that pay the bills but are unsatisfying. Director Shawn Levy establishes early on that Phil and Claire love each other, but that the hectic pace of their lives has drained them and made them complacent. All they want to do is get through each day so they can collapse into their bed at the end of it.
In one funny scene, Claire slips a mouth guard into place as she prepares to lie down next to her husband. When Phil says the guard must mean they won’t be fooling around she removes it.
“No, no, we don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Phil says.
“No, no, we can – really,” Claire says, a string of drool falling across her pajama top.
They go back and forth for about a minute before agreeing to take a rain check and giving in to the lure of sleep.
I liked the Fosters immediately. They’re sincere, they made me laugh and they seemed like people I know. I also liked how Levy carefully developed Phil and Claire before thrusting them into the idiot plotline. Audiences know Carell plays everyday schleps, so Levy devoted more time to Claire, who’s compelled to agree with everything other people say. As she’s trying to sell a house at a steal to a young couple, they say they want to wait until the price comes down a little more; she smiles and says, “Good move. Wait it out.”
The Fosters will be different people by the end of the movie though, thanks to a spur of the moment decision Phil makes on their regular date night, which consists of going to the same restaurant, ordering the same food and making up stories about the other couples (because they have no story of their own).
Phil decides at the last minute to take Claire to a new restaurant in Manhattan, where patrons typically have to make reservations three months in advance. They wait at the bar, hoping against hope, when a waitress calls out “Triplehorn.” When it becomes obvious the Triplehorns aren’t there, Phil raises his hand and says, “We’re the Triplehorns.”
“I just want tonight to be different,” he tells Claire.
Boy, is it ever. As they’re sitting at their table, buzzing from the rush that comes with doing something bad, a couple of goons approach the table and ask them to step into the alley behind the restaurant. Thinking the jig is up, they comply. Outside, the Fosters find out the Triplehorns had double-crossed some bad people, and that those people now believe them to be the missing couple.
I’m not going to describe the idiot plotline that follows except to say it’s painfully contrived. It’s the kind of story that involves – in addition to mistaken identity – mobsters, cops on the take, corrupt politicians, stolen computer files and a helicopter that appears out of nowhere (and that no one heard approaching from miles away).
That said, Carell and Fey continued to make me laugh, even as I was rolling my eyes. When faced with acting street savvy or getting killed, they seemed like a couple of naïve losers trying to talk tough but failing miserably; when they locked bumpers with a cab while trying to escape a couple of crooked cops they looked genuinely terrified. No matter how outrageous their circumstances became, the Fosters stayed grounded in reality; they never started acting like they were conscious of being in a comedy.
In the end, I recommend catching Date Night on DVD at home where you’ll have an easier time forgiving its wobbly parts. Just be sure to put the kids to bed early – and leave the mouth guard in the bathroom.
Email David Laprad at dlaprad @hamiltoncountyherald.com.
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