The (one-hit) Wonders

That Thing You Do!

Director: Tom Hanks

Cast: Tom Everett Scott, Liv Tyler, Steve Zahn, Tom Hanks, Johnathan Schaech, Ethan Embry, Charize Theron

Released: October 4, 1996

Oscar nominations:

Best Original Song - "That Thing You Do!" (lost to "You Must Love Me" from Evita)

You!

Doing that thing you do!

Breaking my heart into a million pieces

like you always do!

And you!

Don't mean to be cruel!

You never even knew about the heartache

I've been going through.

Well I'm trying and try to forget you girl!

But it's just so hard to do!

Everytime you do that thing you do!

It's probably been well over twenty years since I last saw this movie or heard the song, but I can still sing along to every word; it all just came flooding back to me. I'm pretty sure my family owned the soundtrack (don't quote me on that, but it wouldn't surprise me) and the song is played at least a million times during the movie, so it's no wonder (no pun intended) that I haven't missed a beat (again, no pun intended). Even though I don't remember hearing this song on the radio, it must have been played on popular radio stations because I read it was released as a single. 

It was robbed of an Oscar win for best song. "You Must Love Me" from Evita won instead. The other songs nominated were "Because You Loved Me" from Up Close and Personal; "I've Finally Found Someone" from The Mirror Has Two Faces; and "For the First Time" from One Fine Day. Now I think all those songs cancelled each other out because they were all from romantic or romantic-adjacent movies (two of which starred Michelle Pfeiffer!). So I wan't familiar with "For the First Time" so I went to listen to it. Kenny Loggins sings it and I immediately recognized it when it started playing it. I think it was on a compilation CD of movie songs I owned (back in the heyday when people used archaic artifacts like CDs -ask your ancestors, kids). Funnily enough, this CD also included "I've Finally Found Someone." I don't think of "Because You Love Me" being from a movie; I think of it as a single from Celine Dion's grammy-winning album, Falling Into You. I feel like "You Must Love Me" only won because Madonna sung it and was composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Now if "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" (which wasn't even nominated) had won, I would have been fine with that because that song slaps. "You Must Love Me" is a boring, insipid ballad. What I'm simply trying to say is that from the five nominated songs, "That Thing You Do!" should have won. 

I saw this movie in theaters with my dad. He was a teenager in the '60s, when this movie is set, and played in a band, so of course this movie was made for him. This movie is basically about a small town (Eerie, Pennsylvania) band who are discovered and soon become a national sensation with their hit song, the same as the title of the movie, That Thing You Do! 

Guy (Tom Everett Scott) is asked to fill in as the drummer of a band who his friends are in (I guess Guy isn't initially in the band because he works at his dad's appliance store, I'm not really sure) after the drummer, Chad (Giovanni Ribisi), breaks his arm right before they're supposed to play at the Mercyhurst College Talent Show. The other band members include lead singer, Jimmy (Jonathan Schaech); lead guitarist, Lenny (Steve Zahn); and the bass player (Ethan Embry). For some reason, he is credited as T.B. Player as in The Bass Player, so he wasn't given a name. I'll just refer to him as Ethan. 

This band must have just formed after Jimmy wrote a song called "That Thing You Do!" (you might be familiar with it) and wanted to perform it at the talent show. I say that because when Guy comes over to practice with them after he's replaced Chad their band still doesn't have a name. Jimmy has suggested The Heardsmen and The Chordvettes. As you can see, he likes being creative with how he spells the name. I'm sure there's a word for that, but I have no idea. When Guy asks if they're only playing the one song at the show and Jimmy confirms that, he replies, "Wonderful", emphasizing the "won" sound. Jimmy's girlfriend, Faye (Liv Tyler), is there and she lights up when she hears him say that and tells them they should call themselves The Wonders. Jimmy also likes this idea, probably because he can spell it in a creative (and let's be honest, really dumb) way. On a notepad he writes it as THE ONEDERS. Of course, the other band members thinks it reads as "Oh-nee-ders." They will later write it as One-ders, which is a little better, but why not just write it as 1-ders? Actually, scratch that. Now that I see it, it looks awful written that way. Later, they will spell it correctly, but personally, I think The Wonders is not the best name for a band. Why? Because of one-hit wonders. What if you only have one hit and you're called The Wonders? (And this is pretty much what happens to them.) That's just asking to be mocked. 

They're practicing "That Thing You Do" and it's a slower-paced song than what we will eventually know and love it as. 

At the talent show, Guy brings his girlfriend, Tina. She is played by....wait for it....Charlize Theron! This was one of her first movie roles and I did not remember she was in this at all. I probably didn't remember because she was in this before she was famous and she's not in it that much. She's not really impressed that Guy is playing in a talent show and doesn't seem to be into this whole thing at all. Charlize has bigger and better things ahead for her! 

When it's the One-Ders turn to perform, Guy starts playing the drums really fast and at first there's confusion because that's not how the song is supposed to go, but the rest of the band goes with it and this is probably the best decision Guy ever made because it's going to change all their lives. First of all, everyone loved the song and they won first place - a whopping $100 split four ways. I supposed back in 1964, that was a lot of money. Maybe? 

There's an applause-o-meter chart with different rankings that a girl uses her arm to point to a ranking after each performance depending on the audience's reaction. (Obviously a very scientific method. The rankings include: "You Stink", "Not Terrible", "Good", "Extra Good", "Super", and "Wicked.") Not surprisingly, they got the highest score. 

They later play at an Italian restaurant (of all the random places) and some guy asks them where he can get a record of their songs. This gives Guy the idea for them to do just that. He has a relative "in the record industry" who records church music and he could record their songs for them and sell them for a dollar a piece. They play their songs in a church while his uncle is using some very old-fashioned technology to record them. His uncle is played by Chris Issak of "Wicked Game" fame (you know, the song). 

A guy who introduces himself as Phil Horace comes down to the appliance store to talk to Guy about the band. He wants to take them to rock 'n' roll shows to play their music, specifically "That Thing You Do!" He tells them he can get that song on the radio and if the radio doesn't play the song within ten days he'll tear up the contract. 

We see a scene of Tina at the dentist. She's a first-time patient and is very attracted to her handsome dentist. Later, we will later find out she ends up with him. I'm not really sure what the point of having her in the movie was for; it's no wonder I don't remember Charlize Theron at all in this. I heard the director's cut is two and a half hours (way too long!) and I'm sure we get a lot more backstory with her character. 

The band members (and Faye) are wearing ear pieces, listening to the radio so they don't miss it should their song be played on the radio. Guy is working at the store and his dad yanks it out of his ear and tells him to go help the two women who are looking at stoves. Faye is mailing a letter when a song has just finished and the DJ announces the next song as being from "a local Eerie band" and that they just won the Mercyhurst Talent show. She starts screaming and shrieking and running down the street like a maniac, but her enthusiasm is infectious. She sees Ethan who is coming out of a store and they are shrieking in joy together. They run into the appliance store where Guy's telling the two women what colors the stoves come in and Faye tells him to turn on the radio, so he does. In fact, they go around the whole store turning on several radios. Now you can hear the music more clearly; before it sounded a little more muddled. Outside the window we see Lenny and Jimmy pull up and park right in the middle of the street and run in. Guy's dad and sister (who also works at the store) don't look very happy, but his mother, who is sitting in the back where she's doing some paperwork, is smiling and grooving to the music. This is the best scene in the movie; you can't help but smile when you watch it. It's gotta be pretty exciting when your song is played on the radio! 

Later that evening, Guy calls Tina to ask if she heard the song which played three times on the radio that day and she said she didn't and points out she's heard that song many times already. She doesn't seem to care that his band's song was on the radio. Not the most supportive girlfriend! 

Because of their radio success, they've been invited to play at the Orpheum in Pittsburg (the closest big city to them). This is a big deal for them, but unfortunately it turns out to be a disaster. Right before they're about to start, they notice the mikes not working (didn't someone do a sound check?), then when it's turned on, it gives that awful screeching sound and the entire audience are holding their hands to their ears. Once that's corrected, they start playing the song, but then one of Guy's cymbals fall and it's not a great performance. They're lucking that this was pre-Internet/social media or otherwise this would become viral!

The next day, Phil takes Guy to meet a man named Mr. White who is with Play-Tone records and was in town to catch the show. He is played by Tom Hanks and I didn't catch the characters' first name, but according to Wikipedia, it's Amos. He wants to release their record and add The One-ders to their record label. He's also the first person (outside the band and Faye) to get the pronunciation of the band correct and after he becomes their manager, his first order of business is to have them spell their name as The Wonders so there's no more confusion. Many of the label's bands and artists will be touring state fairs and he wants The Wonders to be one of those bands. 

Their record will be released nationally and they will be doing a lot of promoting of it, mostly on radio shows. Mr. White tells them they will be touring until Labor Day (I think it's the beginning of summer when they start), but Ethan tells them he joined the Marine Corps so he has to report to South Carolina at the end of August, but he can stay with the band until then. Maybe this is the reason Ethan Embry isn't given a name in this movie? But he's still in quite a bit of the movie. Mr. White decides the band needs a gimmick so he give Guy a pair of sunglasses to wear while he's performing and has given him the nickname "Shades". 

Their song ends up hitting #93 on the Billboard 100 charts. It was right below "Viva Las Vegas" by Elvis Presley. I paused the movie to look at the other songs, but I didn't recognize any of them. You're probably wondering if they perform any other songs besides "That Thing You Do!", and yes, yes, they do, but honestly, I don't even remember how they go. I think we hear two other songs. 

After getting a montage of them touring many of the fly-over states, Mr. White tells them that there's been a change of plans and they'll next be flying to Los Angeles because their song has become "the fastest-rising single in the history of the Play-tone label." Not only that, but they also have the number 7 record in the country. Not bad for an amateur band! 

As they're leaving to get into the car to take them to the airport (they're currently in Wisconsin), they are attacked by a mob of screaming girls. One of them even jumps on the car. Honestly, it's so embarrassing and we've seen this from the Beatles to One Direction. (Okay, I know One Direction is old news by this point, but I can't think of anything more current.) On the plane, Mr. White tells them he can get them to appear in a motion picture and The Hollywood Television Showcase. Jimmy is the only one who doesn't seem to care about any of that. He just wants to get into the studio to make some music.

The movie they have a cameo in is some lame film called Weekend at Party Pier and they're wearing sailor outfits, playing their instruments outside of a shrimp shack. The main actors, playing characters named Rick, Anita, and Goofball (what is this? The Archies?) are dancing in front and when they have lines, the music stops, but everyone keeps dancing or pretending to play their instruments as though they're still hearing it. There is no way this is being released in theaters; this has to be a TV movie. I would say it's going to straight to video, but I don't think video rentals were a thing back then (just like they're no longer a thing now, heh). Jimmy thinks what they're doing is pretty lame and I have to agree with him. 

Guy gets the chance to meet his hero, a jazz player named Del Paxton when he goes to a jazz bar and is introduced to him by the cocktail waitress (played by Rita Wilson). The old man gives the young musician some sage advice: since bands come and go, he's "got to keep on paying, no matter with who." You could also call this foreshadowing. (Because The Wonders won't last, spoiler alert!)

When they're about to be on the Hollywood Television Showcase, everyone is there except the unnamed bass player. Nobody knows where he is, so Mr. White just brings in a new member named Scott Pell who goes by the nickname Wolfman. I guess since he knew they would be losing their bass player anyway, he had somebody waiting in the wings. It's funny that this guy gets a name and nickname and poor Ethan Embry's character didn't get either! By the way, he was at Disneyland. I guess he didn't take this band that seriously! 

We see some acts/interviews before them and one is astronaut Gus Grissom and he is played by Bryan Cranston and as someone whose favorite show is Breaking Bad, this was very amusing to see. So I did a quick deep dive on him (Gus Grissom; not Bryan Cranston): he was a pilot in the United States Air Force and was selected by NASA for Project Mercury, which trained and launched astronauts into outer space. (Yes, I got this from Wikipedia.) The movie The Right Stuff is all about Project Mercury and Fred Ward played him in the movie. Sadly, Grissom died long before the movie was released in 1983. I noticed on his Wikipedia page that he died at the age of 40 in 1967 in Cape Canaveral and right away I knew he died of something going wrong on a launch. And, yes, during a pre-launch test, the command module interior caught fire and Grissom and two other astronauts were killed. Anyway, back to something a little more light-hearted...(or maybe not, but at least nobody dies in a horrific way in this movie...)

While they play their hit song, we see the camera zoom in individually on all the band members with their names on the bottom of the screen. When they get to Jimmy, there's added text that says, "Careful girls, he's engaged." I mean, c'mon, why do they need to add that? It's not like these girls would have a chance with him anyway! Jimmy sees this on the monitor and he's not singing enthusiastically as he once was.
He's not very thrilled by this. 

We get a funny moment where Guy's family and Chad (the original drummer that Guy replaced) are watching the show on the TV and his mom yells, "Quiet down, I'm trying to hear it!" even though nobody is talking. 

Afterward, in the dressing room, Jimmy yells at Faye, asking her where she got the idea they were engaged and that's "the last thing [he] needs." But it wasn't Faye who told the producers to write that on the screen (I don't think she would even have the authority); it was Mr. White. Oh, and if you're wondering why Faye has been following them around the country even though she's not in the band, there's really no good reason aside from the fact that she's Jimmy's muse. A sad-looking Faye addressed Jimmy in front of everyone and tells him she's breaking up with him and "I have wasted thousands and thousands of kisses on you...shame on me for kissing you with my eyes closed so tight." In my mind, I can see Peter Jackson watching this movie and when he sees Liv Tyler looking so sad he knew right away he had found his perfect Arwen! And also because Liv Tyler is so, so pretty and would make the perfect elfin princess. 

The band ends up breaking up because Jimmy wants to record his own music, Leo has gotten married (and soon divorced) and Guy ends up with Faye. Throughout the movie we see little snippets that he likes her, so it's not a big surprise that they end up together. 

Merry Christmas From the Family

The Family Stone

Director: Thomas Bezucha

Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Luke Wilson, Dermot Mulroney, Claire Dane, Craig T. Nelson, Elizabeth Reaser

Released: December 16, 2005

Viewed in theaters: December 21, 2005

This film, set at Christmas, is about a woman meeting her boyfriend's family for the first time. Now I had seen this before, but hadn't seen it since I saw it in theaters so I didn't remember too much about it. When the opening credits start, Claire Danes is the first name to appear and I was thinking, I don't remember Claire Danes being the main character. Well, she's not. As soon as the next two names popped up, I realized that the names were appearing in alphabetical order which makes sense since it's an ensemble film. If anything, Claire Danes' character is probably the one person you could take out of the movie and she doesn't even appear until later (although her hair looks absolutely fantastic). 

Meredith Morton (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) both have successful business jobs in Manhattan and met last summer in Hong Kong and have been dating ever since. Everett is taking her to his folks' home in some idyllic, charming, snowy town in Massachusetts for Christmas so she can meet his family for the first time. Now if it were just his parents, Sybil and Kelly (Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson), that would be one thing, but no, she'll be meeting his entire family which will consists of eight people. Meeting my significant other's extended family for the the first time on Christmas would be my absolute nightmare and I do feel for Meredith because she's not exactly the kind of person who makes friends easily and has everyone fall in love with her. I am a little surprised she agreed to meet his entire family for Christmas. Besides his parents, here is who else she will be meeting: 

-Amy (Rachel McAdams), Everett's youngest sibling. There are five Stone siblings and Everett is the oldest. Even though she will come around in the end, Amy does some things that make her quiet unlikeable. I was listening to a podcast about this movie and one of the hosts joked that Rachel McAdams wanted to play a character even more despicable than Regina George.

-Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser; this was before she had her arc on Grey's Anatomy and was in the Twilight movies) is the middle child of the Stone siblings. She's probably the only one who doesn't cause any drama and just seems to be there. She is pregnant and has a daughter. Her husband won't show up until late on Christmas, so not until the very end of the movie. I can't remember if they even tell us why he's showing up so late, but I'm guessing they didn't want to add another character with so many already. I just don't know the reason within the confines of the movie. According to Wikipedia, Susannah lives in Chicago, but I also don't remember that being mentioned.

-Elizabeth, Susannah's daughter and the only kid at this family Christmas. I guess they wanted to throw in at least one kid! She's probably eight or nine.

-Thaddeus, or Thad as his family calls him, is the second youngest Stone. He is deaf and his family communicates with him through sign language, but he can also read lips and it seems like he can hear a little bit. 

-Patrick, Thad's partner. Yep, Thad is also gay. And Patrick is black, so they put all the diversity into these two characters. These two might be the smartest in the movie because they're the only ones staying at an inn. This family is kind of a lot so that might explain why Susannah's husband doesn't show up until the last minute and I don't know how long Thad and Patrick have been together, but Patrick probably was the one who told Thad they would be staying at an inn whenever they visited. Smart move. 

-Ben (Luke Wilson) is the second oldest Stone. He's the last to arrive (not counting Susannah's husband and I just realized I don't even know his name) and he's very chill. Let's just say he lives up to his surname. He lives in San Francisco where he works as a film editor. 

Everyone is at the house (besides Ben) before Everett and Meredith arrive. Amy is the only one who's already met Meredith and she tells her family she hates her and how "phony" and "uptight" she is. Apparently she took her out to dinner at a fancy restaurant and talked the entire time. She tells them about how when she's nervous she has this nervous tic where she clears her throat several times. Before this scene, while in the car on the way to the house, Meredith had been clearing her throat.

While I don't think she's a bad person, Meredith comes off as cold and aloof. Look, I know not everybody has a bubbly personality and doesn't always make the best first impression; I count myself as one of those people, but Meredith is not impressing any of her boyfriend's family members as they're all watching from the window as Kelly goes out to greet them. Everett gets out of the car first and Meredith waits for him to go around the car and open the door for her. Good Lord, you're a successful businesswoman, open your own damn door! But I think this is the first moment showing that Meredith is a bit on the old-fashioned side. Then, as if that's not awkward enough, Kelly tries to embrace both of them, she ducks out of the hug and shakes his hand instead. I can kind of side her with this; I don't like hugging people I just met either, but the way she gets out of the hug just makes it worse.

When she and Everett are unpacking in one of the bedrooms, she tells him she doesn't want to be sleeping in the same bed as him in his parents' house. Obviously they don't care since they're the ones who gave them that bedroom. It would be one thing if there were plenty of bedrooms, but with all those people in the house, all the bedrooms are taken. She is given the bedroom in the attic which was supposed to be Amy's room and now she (Amy) will have to sleep on the couch. She's not very happy and I don't blame her; I would be pretty ticked off too, especially since Meredith already had a perfectly fine bedroom to sleep in. I think when you're meeting your boyfriend's family for the first time, it's just best to go with the flow and not make any waves. 

Her sister calls her and she talks to her in private, telling her that everyone hates her and how she's "being herself." Heh, I'm guessing her sister knows everyone hates her because she was "being herself". 

Elizabeth, the young girl, had commented on how much she liked Meredith's shoes earlier and before Meredith's sister called, she, Sybil, and Amy had been helping Meredith get her room ready, but left when Meredith took the call. Elizabeth had taken a pair of shoes and when Meredith goes down to the kitchen, she sees she had broken off one of the heels. Now this is when Susannah (who had Elizabeth in her lap, so she clearly saw what happened) should have offered to replace them (actually, she should have told her daughter not to touch them in the first place!), but instead she just says they can glue the heel back on, but Meredith just takes the shoes and goes to take them back upstairs. By this time Ben has arrived and tells her not to "diddy-daddle" because they're "all going to be down here talking about you." Even though he's joking, this makes her super uncomfortable and self-conscious. 

After dinner, while Sybil is doing dishes Everett comes into the kitchen and tells her he wants to ask her something. She knows what he wants to ask her and tells him "now is not the time." 

They play charades and it's quite clear nobody in this group has ever played charades before because they're not doing it right! No, I get that the only reason they play it like this is for the plot of the movie. So when you normally play charades, you divide up into teams (usually two or more, depending on how many people) and the person who's "it", takes a card, looks at it and acts out whatever is on the card. Nobody knows what the card says except whoever's acting it out. At least that's the way I've always known how it's supposed to be played! Here, there don't seem to be any teams, which, okay, fine, they're all trying to guess. I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is that Amy is giving people cards to act out. When it's Meredith's turn (and she doesn't want to play, but they insist), Amy shuffles through the card and gives her one to act. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU PLAY CHARADES! What's the fun of that, anyway? She can't even play! She does try to "guess", but someone points out she can't participate because she already knows the answer. These people are perfectly capable of picking out their own cards and acting out what it says on them so EVERYBODY can participate! It's just so contrived and it irritates me so much! They only have it this way because it needs to be part of the plot that Amy purposely gives Meredith the card she chose for her. So here's what happens: after shuffling through the cards (instead of just taking the one on top), she gives Meredith the card she (Amy) wants her to act out. The card is a movie title, "The Bride Wore Black" (which I've never heard of; it's from 1969). Meredith is able to get "bride" from the audience, but is having more difficulty with the other two words (I'm not counting "the"). At the fourth word, black, she looks frustrated (how would you act out a color?) and Patrick tells her "it's okay" and tries to be supportive and Meredith subtly points at him by acknowledging what he's saying. May I remind you that Patrick is the black boyfriend of Thad. Well, Amy sees this and immediately jumps on Meredith, telling her, "I can't believe you're pointing at him." This is the reason why they needed Amy to know what the clue was. To accuse her of pointing at the black guy in the room when the clue has the word "black" in it; otherwise, she probably would have just thought she was poinitng at Thad for what he was telling Meredith. If I were Thad, I'd be pretty ticked with Amy for even choosing that clue and he is once they find out what the clue was (after Meredith gets upset and runs out of the room). 

Later, when Sybil and Kelly are getting ready for bed, we find out what Everett wanted to ask her earlier when she tells her husband that she knows Everett wants to ask for her mother's wedding ring to propose to Meredith. Get it? It's called The Family Stone because Stone is the surname of the family AND the ring is a family heirloom, hence "the family stone." 

The next morning, Meredith wakes up before Everett (bad call wanting to sleep in a separate room; at least if she were still in the same room as him she would know he wasn't up yet!) and is downstairs in the kitchen with Sybil and Amy. Sybil tells Amy that they got a card from the Stevenson. We find out they have a son named Brad who Sybil reminds her daughter "is still in town and still available." She then proceeds to tell Meredith that Amy lost her virginity to Brad. I'm not sure why she thinks that's any of Meredith's business! 

Sybil leaves the kitchen and Meredith apologizes to Amy for having to sleep on the couch and suggests they could take turns. That just seems very inconvenient. Amy just has a snide comeback for her and Meredith decides she's just going to get a room at the same inn where Thad and Patrick are staying at so Amy can have her room back. We find out she used having a bad back as an excuse, but nobody believes her. We also find out that her sister, Julie (Claire Danes), will are joining her, for moral support, I guess. 

Everett talks to his mom again about the ring and tells her, "This is the woman I'm going to marry." She clarifies, "We're talking about Meredith, right?", ha! He reminds her that she told him that when he met the woman he knew he was going to marry to come to her because she "wanted that woman to wear [Sybil's] mother's wedding ring." He wants to propose to Meredith tomorrow, which is Christmas. She simply tells him, "No" and when he tells her, "You promised," she replies, "Tough sh*t." 

Meredith has returned from checking in at the inn and is in the kitchen with Patrick when Sybil comes in and gets needlessly angry because somebody had taken the pot of coffee without making more and apparently it's a rule that whoever takes the last cup of coffee needs to make more. Well, the audience sees Meredith at the sink washing out the pot before Sybil does. Gee, Sybil, maybe not everybody knows your rule. Then Sybil gets pissed again when she sees all these ingredients are on her desk (which is in the kitchen) and Patrick tells her Meredith is making breakfast for them tomorrow. I feel like Patrick and Susannah have been the only nice ones to Meredith. I guess Kelly hasn't been too awful to her. And yes, I'm not including her own boyfriend in that list. Meredith tells her she's making strata because it's a family tradition for her and her sister. 

While Meredith and Patrick are working on the strata, Susannah comes in and asks them if they've seen her mom and Patrick tells her she's upstairs taking a nap. This is the first sign you know something might be wrong when Susannah lies next to her mother in bed and Sybil rolls over and asks her, "Who else knows?" We find out that she used to have cancer and it has come back. So now I can kind of forgive her for being little snappy towards Meredith. Ben knows about it and his dad confirms "it's not good" and that they only found out a couple weeks ago and she wanted to wait until after Christmas to tell them. It seems as though all the Stone children know about their mom except for Amy. When she sees Ben embracing their mom for a long time, she wants to know what's going on, but nobody answers her. 

Since Everett and Thad had to run errands in town, they're going to meet Julie at the bus station. It seems weird that her own sister isn't meeting her. I would understand if Julie had met Everett, but they've never met before. Again, this is done for the plot of the movie. We can't have Meredith there because Everett is going to...gasp....fall in love with Julie. The way it's framed when he first sees her, you know it's love at first sight. And this is the reason why we don't need Claire Danes in this movie. What is this, the dude version of While You Were Sleeping where he's in a relationship with one sister, but ends up falling for the other sister? 

She meets the rest of the family and they all love her, probably because she comes off natural and likable. When the sisters have a private moment, Sybil tells Kelly that Julie would be perfect for Ben. I have to feel bad for Meredith in that moment. So her sister is good enough for one of their sons, but she isn't good enough for their other son. 

They're having Christmas Eve dinner and chit-chatting. When everyone is done eating, Elizabeth asks to be excused, but the conversation continues. It's a good thing the young girl left because it's about to get ugly! Julie has found out Thad and Patrick want to adopt a baby and she asks them if they have a preference about the child's race. They tell her it doesn't matter to them; they're just excited to raise a child. Then Meredith decides to put in her two cents and asks them, "Do you believe in nature vs nurture?", telling them that studies have shown it's the environment that may be of the contributing factors that makes people gay. Kelly tells her they don't believe that, they think that people are born gay and Sybil makes a joke that she wanted all her sons to be gay so they would never leave her (which is a weird thing to say; not that she wanted them all to be gay, but that she thinks if they were, they would never leave...like, why?). Meredith says, "You didn't really hope for gay children, did you?" and it gets so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Oof, Meredith, why did you say that? I cringed so hard. She apologizes, but goes on to say, "I don't think any parent would hope for a child to be challenged like that. Yikes. She keeps putting her foot in her mouth as she keeps trying to explain herself instead of just dropping the subject until finally Kelly slams his hand on the table and yells "That's enough!" and she excuses herself. 

Julie speaks up and tries to apologize for her sister, but Sybil interrupts her and throws a fork at Thad's plate to get his attention. He's looking down dejected. She signs to him that she loves him and that he is more normal than anyone else at this table. I get she's trying to make him feel better, but it feels like she's being a bit patronizing. I just get he feeling that he's the favorite child because he's gay AND deaf and she constantly has to remind him or something. Although she does think Everett is amazing, so he could be in her running for her favorite child. 

They hear the door slam and Everett's car starts and they realize it's Meredith. She crashes into some bushes. I'm not sure if it was because of the snow or she's just so distraught. Ben goes out to check on her and she's sobbing. He tells her to move over and drives her to O'Malley's, a nearby bar. I should have included Ben in the list of people who are nice to Meredith, but I don't know if I should count him because he's the type of person who's nice to everybody (remember he's always so chill!), plus you know there's a romance a-brewin' between those two, because, why not. Actually, this romance doesn't irk me as much as the way more contrived Everett/Julie romance. 

At the bar, Meredith unleashes all her pent up frustration to Ben about his family (mainly Amy). He tells her to "stop trying" and that she must be "exhausted." After getting a few drinks in her, she loosens up and dances to her favorite song, "Right Back Where We Started From" by Maxine Nightingale. Two guys who Ben knows come in and when he introduces one of them to Meredith as Brad Stevenson, she recognizes his name as the guy Amy lost her virginity to and invites him over for Christmas breakfast tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Everett wants to go looking for Meredith and Julie tells him she' coming with him. They check the inn first, but she's not there. They walk around downtown, talking and bonding. The movie is trying to show us they seem to have bonded on this deep, emotional level, ugh. When he takes her back to the inn he pretty much asks her out on a date, asking her if she wants to get some coffee. Like, dude, what are you doing? You're still dating her sister. They're just trying too hard to make them a couple. As Regina George would say, "Stop trying to make fetch happen; it's not going to happen!" 

The next morning Meredith wakes up and discovers she's in Ben's bed. He's in the en suit shower (is there more than one bedroom with en suit showers in this house?) so she's the only one in the bed when Kelly knocks on the door. He knocks a few times, freaking Meredith out because she doesn't know what to do. She's shuffling around and grabs her shirt from the night before (she's wearing a tank top and has the bedspread covering her). When he opens the door, he sees Meredith in the bed, clutching her shirt and looking away with her eyes squeezed shut. He seems just as embarrassed as her and quickly leaves. 

Everett is in the kitchen when Sybil tells him "Merry Christmas" and gives him the ring. Then, in one of the stupidest moments of the movie, Julie enters and Everett shows her the ring and wants her to try it on because he wants to see if "it will fit" even though she tells him her hands are bigger than Meredith's and Sybil points out it's bad luck. Yes, I would think putting an engagement ring that's intended for you girlfriend on her sister instead would be very bad luck (and very poor taste as well!), but obviously he wants Julie to try it on because she's the Morton sister he truly wants to marry, but dude, maybe break up with the other sister first. He puts the ring on Julie's finger and they're both so speechless because the ring is so beautiful! Surprise, surprise, when Julie tries to take the ring off, she can't because it's stuck. 

Meanwhile, Ben has come out of the shower in a towel and Meredith slaps him and says, "How dare you!" He tries to tell her something, but she's dressed and it looks like she's going to leave, but when she walks downstairs by the front door Everett sees her and demand to know where she's been and she tells him she just arrived. 

She hears Julie crying in the bathroom (yes, she's crying because she can't get the ring off) and goes in to check on her and asks her what's going on. Julies holds up her hand with the ring on it and tells her, "It's your wedding ring." Meredith is shocked because she had no idea Everett was planning to propose. When asked why she's wearing her wedding ring, Julie tells her he wanted to see it on her and Meredith has a very good question: "Why did he wants to see it on you?" (Maybe that's a better question to ask Everett!) Julie changes the subject by asking her sister where she was last night and Meredith tells her she can't tell her and looks guilty and Julie quickly figures out what she means. 

Get ready for some more drama! The door bell rings and Amy answers it to find Brad with flowers and a gift. When asked what he's doing there, he tells her that Meredith invited her. Everyone is now gathered in the living room and Amy pointedly tells Meredith, "You know Brad" and asks her to share with everyone how she knows him and Brad tells them met at O'Malley's last night. Meredith quickly distracts everyone by handing out gifts to all the Stone siblings and Sybil and Kelly. They had all received the same framed photo of Sybil pregnant with Amy and this makes everyone start crying because they all know this will probably be Sybil's last Christmas. They're all very touched by the gift an Sybil tells Meredith, "You did good." 

Everett wants to talk to Meredith and thinking he's going to pop the question, she keeps brushing him off and when he keeps insisting to talk to her, she yells, "No, I will not marry you!" in front of everyone. She lowers her voices and tells him she can't marry him and he replies, "I didn't ask you." She then feels really stupid and tells everyone that this is what they all wanted, to see her humiliated and she goes on a tirade and ends up announcing to everyone she slept with Ben. Ben tells her they did not sleep together and she's had enough humiliation that she runs into the kitchen. Ben tells the others that he slept on the floor while Meredith slept in his bed. 

In the kitchen, Meredith has gotten the two pans of strata from the fridge when Sybil and Amy decide to check on her and when they open the swinging kitchen door it knocks into Meredith and the pans of strata (with all the milk and uncooked eggs) goes flying all over the floor. The women all start laughing and soon music from The Nutcracker starts playing as the Stone family continue to have their dysfunction family Christmas: the women are slipping and sliding on the floor as they try to clean the mess, Everett is chasing Ben around the house because he wants to know why Meredith would think she slept with him (even though Everett isn't into her anymore), and the table ends up falling over and all the food is ruined. 

The ring has finally slid off Julie's figures and she gives it to Elizabeth to give to Everett and tells her to say goodbye for her, but of course he goes running after her. 

The last scene of the movie is one year later when everyone has gathered at the house for Christmas again. This time Sybil is no longer with them, but I'm sure she's smiling down at them because now all her three single children have somebody: Ben is with Meredith, Everett with with Julie, and Amy and Brad are now together. Honestly, out of those three couples, Amy and Brad are the only ones who I think will be in it for the long haul. Ben and Meredith just don't make sense and Everett and Julie should have never happened. I feel like they just threw that in there because they didn't want Everett to be the only one without a partner, but they could have just said he met somebody and was bringing her. It's just too cute that the two sisters found love in the same family. 

Family Guy

The Family Man

Director: Brett Ratner

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Téa Leoni, Jeremy Piven, Don Cheadle, Makenzie Vega

Released: December 22, 2000

Unlike Scrooged, this movie is not an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, but it has a similar vibe: a very wealthy New York City businessman named Jack Campbell (Nicolas Cage) gets a "glimpse" of what his life could have been like if he had never gotten on a plane to London thirteen years ago. Why is boarding/not boarding a plane to London so many years ago so significant? Well, the first scene begins in 1987 (which is 13 years prior to "current day" 2000) at the airport where Jack is saying goodbye to his girlfriend, Kate (Téa Leoni) before boarding the plane to London. Because it is 1987 (hell, because this movie was filmed in '99 or '00!), she is able to be at the gate with him. When his plane is called, she tells him she has a "bad feeling" if he gets that on that plane. That's something you never want to hear from somebody before boarding a plane. But not because she thinks the plane will crash, but because "this feels wrong". He is going to London because he has an internship there with Barclays. He tells her they already agreed on him going to London and she has "been accepted to one of the best law schools in the country" (they couldn't tell us which one?) and this is a great plan for both of them. She says she wants them to start their life right now and it's them that make each other great, not the plan. He kisses her and tells her that he loves her, but he's still going to London because it will only be for one year.

Except their plan for staying together didn't work out because thirteen years have passed and he is now a filthy rich executive who lives in a super posh building (with a doorman!) and Kate is nowhere to be seen. As he heads to work on Christmas Eve, we see him have "quasi-sexual witty banter" (his words) with Mrs Peterson, an elderly snooty woman who also lives in his building and he is chummy with Tony, the doorman. He is the president of the company P.K. Lassiter Investment House. I'm not exactly sure what this company is, but there's going to be a big merger with another company, one that is "the largest in U.S. corporate history" and it's happening tomorrow, on Christas Day for some weird reason. Three hundred sixty five days in the year (really 366 because I believe 2000 was a Leap Year) and they had to do this on one of the biggest holidays of the year? He tells his staff they will be working through Christmas, but promises him it will be worth it because on the 26th, they'll all have so much money it will feel like Christmas every day. We meet Alan Mintz, one of his staff members, who is a bit more mild-mannered and tells Jack that he's thinking about his family and how he promised his wife he'd be home for Christas Eve and this is when Jack gives them the pep talk. Alan is played by Saul Rubinek, who played Donny in Frasier, the brash lawyer who Daphnes almost marries. Just so you know: all the characters we're meeting now will be important in the alternate timeline. What a shock, I know! 

We meet Jack's boss, Peter Lassiter, and the two of them pretty much laugh and pat their backs about how rich they are and how happy they are because they're so rich. Jack's secretary tells him that a woman named Kate called and of course she's talking about his old girlfriend who he hasn't seen or (presumably) heard from since 1987! The very same one that told him not to get on that plane to London but he did anyway. He doesn't bother returning the call, but isn't he the least bit curious why she called? We don't learn the reason for her call at that moment. He asks his secretary to schedule a "strategy session" for noon tomorrow (on Christmas, remember) and she quips, 'That will be a nice holiday treat."  

After work, he stops by a convenience store to grab some eggnog (isn't somebody as rich as he is have people to do those kind of chores for him? But he needs to be there for the procession of the plot!). While there, a guy called Cash (Don Cheadle) comes in with an interesting fashion choice of wearing a visor backwards and something is hanging from it, like a lighter, maybe. He has a lottery ticket that he claims is good for $238, but the cashier (a young Ken Leung) thinks he "[drew] the lines." I wasn't really sure what he was talking about because I don't play the lottery, but I guessed he changed the numbers with a pencil (kinda how Robin Williams changed the phone number in Mrs. Doubtfire). When the cashier still refuses to give him any money, he gets upset and takes out a gun. Jack decides to be a hero and goes up to him to offer him a "business deal" where he will buy the ticket from him for $200 and then he can cash in the rest of the $38. Cash now points the gun at Jack and asks him if he wants to die. 

It was at this point I was convinced Cash was going to shoot him (he points the gun at him sideways which is the Hollywood sign for a kill shot) and he would end up in a coma (not dead, mind you, but a coma) and this would cause him to enter his alternative life. But nope. Cash doesn't shoot him. He doesn't shoot anyone, luckily. He tells Jack he'll take his deal. They walk outside together and Jack gives him the money. He asks him why he's carrying around the gun and that he'll end up doing something he'll regret with it. He tells him, "Everybody needs something." When Cash asks Jack what he (Jack) needs, Jack replies, "I got everything I need." Don't you just want to punch people like that in the face? He then tells Cash he could get his life together with "some honest, hard work and a little bit of medicine" (the last part is a bit presumptuous of him) and Cash just laughs and says, "You just remember that you did this, Jack, you, okay? You brought this on yourself." 

Jack returns home and goes to sleep in his fancy flat, but when he wakes up there's a blonde woman in pajamas laying on his stomach who seems to know his name when she says, "Ten more minutes, Jack. It's Christmas." A six-year-old girl and her toddler brother wander into the room, singing Christmas songs and being very excited because it's Christmas morning. Jack is looking very concerned. The kids are jumping on the bed and a large dog also hops on the bed. We soon realize the woman he's with is Kate. While she's distracted with the kids, Jack (who hasn't said a word at all) gets up and puts on some sweat pants and a sweat shirt (which are the closest thing he can find to wear (and something he would never wear) and runs downstairs where Kate's parents have just arrived. Because he's met them before, he knows who they are and they chitchat with him as though they're familiar with him and he's supposed to be there. Speaking for the first time since waking up in this odd world, he tells them, "Excuse me" and runs out the front door, ignoring their question of "Where are you going?" He runs back in after a few seconds and asks, "Where's my car? Where's my Ferrari?" (Dude, where's my Ferrari?) They seem surprised he has a Ferrari and when he asks if he can borrow their car, Ed (Kate's father), tells him to "drive [his] own damn car", which is a minivan parked in the drive way. 

He takes it and drives into the city (he's in New Jersey) and parks it in front of the building where he lives (or is supposed to live) and Tony, the doorman he knows (or is supposed to know) tells him that the building is "for residents and guests only." Of course he has no idea who he is. I chortle as I try to imagine this from the doorman's perspective. He sees this minivan pull out and this guy in sweats gets out and tries to walk past him to get him into the building. Like, he's not even pretending to act like he lives in a posh building! Then he sees Mrs. Peterson, the old lady who lives in his building, walk by and Jack acknowledges her and she asks Tony, "Who is this man?" Jack is incredulous they don't know who he is. They offer to give him help and tell him they can take him to a shelter. This is kinda funny since this is exactly how he acted towards Cash the other day. He gets super angry, screaming at them about how he's the "richest man in the building." Honestly, I don't know how the doorman kept a straight face. I would have bust out laughing. 

He ends up going to the building where he works (or is supposed to work) and some guy in the lobby (who works there) tells him the building is closed for Christmas. Well, if the building is closed, why is that poor schmuck there? To tell people the building is closed? Why don't they just lock the doors? But they need this scene so Jack can tell him he's the president, but when he looks at the sign, it says that Alan Mintz, the mousey guy that worked for Jack in the previous timeline, is now the president.

He walks out onto the street where he almost gets run over by his own Ferrari which is being driven by Cash who's had a glow-up and is wearing a white turtleneck and black leather coat. He tells Jack to hop in and that he'll explain everything. It turns out Cash is some Ghost of Christmas Future or angel or something, I don't think we're quite told what/who he is and why he has these powers. Of course Jack is demanding to know what's going on and he tells him not to get so worked up because he "brought this on [him]self" and reminds him of how he said he had everything he needed and that "this is a glimpse" (I would call it more than a "glimpse"!) and when asked of what, he replies, 'You're gonna have to figure that out for yourself" and he will get "as much time as it takes" (hence why it's more than a "glimpse") and adds, "Which in your case is probably gonna be considerable." 

He drives Jack back to the parked minivan and gives him a bell, the kind you put on a bike. Jack asks if it's some kind of signal and if Cash will come whenever he rings it. Cash doesn't really answer, but tells Jack he needs to go now. Jack doesn't want to, but Cash tells him he has other business to take care of. 

Jack has to use a map to get back home and I'm not talking about Google maps; he uses a physical map. He stops at a house in a nearby neighborhood and asks a guy taking out the trash if he knows the street he's looking for. The guy must not have heard him, otherwise he would have thought it was odd Jack was asking him that. This guy turns out to be Arnie (Jeremy Piven), a friend of Jack's, even though Jack has no idea who he is and learns they're friends when he sees a picture of them together in Arnie's house after he invites him in. Arnie's wife is played by Kate Walsh, but she's barely in the movie. At least she'll soon have Grey's Anatomy to look forward to. 

Arnie tells Jack that Kate called wanting to know if he (Arnie) had seen him (Jack) and asks him if he's okay since he took off on Christmas Day without telling anyone. Jack tells him the truth (without telling him the WHOLE truth): he's having a bad day. Arnie tells him he's in his 30s with a house, kids, and financial responsibilities and that he's probably thinking, 'This isn't the life I dreamt about.' In Jack's case, it's really not. Apparently Arnie had almost had an affair once and Jack had given him some advice: "Don't screw up the best thing in your life just because you're a little unsure about who you are." Sounds like Arnie is giving him that advice right back at him. 

Even though in this new reality, Jack doesn't have as much money as he used to, it's hilarious how he acts like he's so poor even though he lives in a four bedroom house with two and a half bathrooms. I guess from a multi-millionaire's point of view, he is poor. 

When Jack returns to the house, Kate demands to know where he's been and that she's called all their friends and the hospital and had the state troopers out looking him. It's been "hours later" since he's come back. He tells her he was in the city and tries to tell her that's where he lives and this isn't house and that she's not his wife. Apparently, he's "joked" about this before because she says, "It's not funny this time." I guess they needed this to be a normal thing he does, but the original Jack from the timeline seems happy with the life, so why would that Jack have to "joke" about that? It makes no sense. I notice they kind of tiptoe around anytime Jack acts weird or doesn't know anything that he should know. 

He takes out the bell and starts ringing it, thinking Cash will show up, but Annie, the daughter, comes by on a bike she got for Christmas and takes it, thinking it's for her new bike. Annie is played by Makenzie Vega, the younger sister of Alexa Vega and she would go on to play the daughter in The Good Wife. 

Jack and Kate end up going to a Christmas party (Jack didn't want to go, but when he found out it was either that or staying home and watching the kids instead of Kate's mother, he opted for the party instead. I guess it was the less scarier of the two for him!) at a nearby home where they're friends with the couple. The woman, Evelyn, clearly has a thing for Jack and keeps flirting with him, but he's pretty oblivious to her. It was hilarious when he walked straight to the table with a bowl of punch and other drinks and poured himself some alcohol from a glass decanter. 

He overhears Kate telling a story to a bunch of women and this is how he finds out she's a non-profit lawyer and he's not very happy about it He confronts her about it and isn't thrilled she doesn't get paid. She dismisses his comment and continues on with the conversation. This is a great example of how the movie just has the characters gloss over how odd Jack is acting. Like, Kate should be wondering what the f**k is up with him. 

The next morning he wakes up and thinks he's back in his original life in his own bed in Manhattan because nobody is next to him in bed and it's quiet, but then Josh, the toddler, starts crying. Kate is in the en suite shower and when he knocks on the door and opens it to tells her "that baby is crying", she tells him it's his day to take care of the kids and adds he needs to get Josh to daycare on time. Does she not think it's weird that he says "that baby" instead of the kid's name or even "the baby"? She was showering while "Beast of Burden" was playing, so maybe she didn't hear him say "that baby". 

Annie helps him change Josh's diaper (well, she doesn't physically help him, just tells him what he needs to do and where things he needs are). Annie is very perceptive and knows that isn't her real father and tells him. She thinks aliens have abducted her real father and the new Jack is an alien in disguise. It's pretty cute when she asks him if he like kids and he replies, "On a case-by-case basis." She asks if he knows how to make chocolate milk (but sounds more like "chalk-wit milk" with her lisp) and he tells her he thinks he can figure it out. She helps him with directions to the daycare (amazing that a six-year-old can do that, so I'm guessing the school isn't too far away from their house) and when Jack drops off Josh he asks the woman who works there if he needs a receipt. Yeah, it's funny that he says that, but I'm sure that woman has seen Jack drop off his son many times and that comment didn't arouse any suspicion? Maybe she thought he was being funny? But the way he was carrying Josh (had his arms way outstretched with him in them) was super sus too. Why are these people just accepting how odd he is acting? Is the six-year-old the only smart one in the movie? Apparently, she is! 

After he drops off Annie at school, he asks her what he's supposed to do next and she tells him he goes to work at Big Ed's Tires. That's Ed as in his father-in-law. He is thrilled to be selling tires (that was sarcasm, obviously). Another weird thing that happens and nobody questions is when he asks one of his employees where his office is. Yeah, he will ask Jack if he's okay a little bit later, but still...the movie really just isn't worried about how his odd behavior is coming across to the everyday people in his life, and they just don't seem to notice or care that much. In his office, he finds a checkbook in the desk and starts flipping through it and says "Oh, no" so whatever the amount is, it's not good, though to be fair, he's used to having millions of dollars so the amount he has in this timeline could be totally fine for his situation. The checkbook (along with the physical map and airport security) definitely dates the movie! The only time I use a check is to pay my rent. I used to write check way back in the early 2000s and I hated it because it took so long! I think my mom might be the only person left who still writes checks. 

On the wall, he sees a plaque that says he was the #1 Junior Sales Associate in 1988, the same year he should have been in London, so does that mean he never made it across the pond? Well, obviously in this timeline it does! It reminds me of one of those Choose Your Adventure books and this time instead of choosing to go for the path that will lead him to a plushy career with lots of perks, he chose the domestic life with a family. Honestly, his life in the domestic path isn't bad at all; he'll soon find out it's quite nice. The only thing I would say is a downgrade is the job and not just because he's making significantly less money, but selling tires (or anything in retail, really) just seems like one of the worst jobs you can have. To me, anyway! 

There are moments when it looks like he's coming around and accepting this new life, but then he'll just turn into a complete ass. In one scene, the whole family is at the mall and Kate is listing off places they need to go and he sarcastically says they should just go to every store in the mall. She tells him she'll take the kids shopping and he can stay in the men's department. 

While they're gone, he looks around and finds a $2400 suit very similar to one he wore in his old life and tries it on. Kate and the kids come back and she tells him he looks amazing in it. She's not so impressed with the price, though when he tells her he wants to buy it. He retorts back like a petulant child and claims that Annie got new shoes and she says they only cost $25. He starts to have a hissy fit and the sales guy quietly sneaks away, probably upset he isn't making a sale. Jack asks her, "Do you have ay idea what my life is like?" and starts rambling about his mundane life. When talking about work, he says "retail" in a very acidic tone which I can totally relate! (I don't even work in retail, but I know I would hate it if I did!) He harkens back to the very first scene when he asks her how she could "let [him] give up on [his] dream?" She just looks at him and asks, "Who are you?" in a tone of disbelief and he tells her that maybe he's not the same guy he was when they got married. The most Nic Cage-iest line of the movie is when he shouts at her, "I'm sorry I was such a saint before and I'm such a PRICK now!" He was really channeling some Castor Troy energy there. 

He does apologize to Kate while they're driving home and also learns some new stuff such as Annie was a surprise pregnancy and Kate's dad had a heart attack and Jack stepped in to help out and that's why he works at his shop now. 

In this timeline, he likes to go bowling with his friends (something I very much doubt the Wall Street executive Jack would do; in fact, I bet that Jack didn't even have any friends!) and while at a bowling alley with some friends, he runs into Evelyn, the attractive woman who's always flirting with him. He's pretty straightforward with her and asks her if there's anything going on between them. She asks him if they're finally going to be honest and tells him "we've been dancing around this for years." So does that mean the previous Jack in this timeline had been thinking about cheating on his wife? She admits she likes him and wants to have an affair and that Kate "will never have to know."  He seriously considers it and tells Arnie who is in disbelief that he's even thinking about cheating on Kate. Jack replies that "it wouldn't really be cheating" because he's thinking this isn't his life and Kate isn't his wife but of course he can't explain that to Arnie! (Heh, it reminds me of that song, "And you may tell yourself, 'This is not my beautiful house' and you may tell yourself, 'This is not my beautiful wife.'" EDIT: After writing this, I watched the trailer, and no joke, they use that song, so they had the same thought.) Arnie tells him he's an idiot because he already has an amazing wife and he's going to mess it up if he does this. So he doesn't. 

I wasn't totally sure how much time has passed while Jack is in this alternate universe, but I think it's around Valentine's Day (or perhaps even on Valentine's Day because they totally seem like the kind of couple who would get married on that day) when he learns it's their anniversary. Of course he doesn't know it so he doesn't have a gift for her. He tells her he wants to give it to her later because their anniversary is all day. This is another sign that she should know something is up because she tells him that he always gives her his gift first thing in the morning. She's very excited to receive her gift, like a kid on Christas morning. She had given him a knockoff suit of the one he liked. It was a sweet gesture, but I'm not sure if he's ever going to wear it because it's not quite the same thing! 

He ends up taking her out to dinner at a nice restaurant in Manhattan. All he had to tell her that morning was that he had a surprise planned for her later that evening, but I guess in that moment he still had no idea what he was going to get her. He orders for both of them: "Terrine of quail breast with shiitake mushrooms, veal medallions in raspberry truffle sauce, sea scallops with pureed artichoke hearts." I had to look up what a terrine was and it's a dish that is made in a ceramic or glass rectangular vessel and is "constructed in loaf-shaped layers of either meat or fish [quail in their case] and can sometimes contain vegetables" (taken from thespruceeats.com). He asks for an '82 bottle of wine, but when Kate informs him that it's $800, he changes it to two glasses of red wine. 

They're having a nice evening. He tells her he needs to tell her something and begins by saying, "I feel like I'm living someone else's life." Which technically he is, but she reads it as he's saying "How did I end up here?" She even agrees with him, telling him she wonders how she ended up in New Jersey (didn't they live in New York before? Not that big of a mystery). They talk about how their lives would have been if they had pursed their professional paths and she says, "Can you imagine life where everything was just easy? Where you ask for things and and then people just bring them to you?" Of course he knows exactly what's that like and replies, "It's wonderful" and she just laughs because of course it would be wonderful. She tells him she wonders what kind of life she would have had if she never married him. We already know what his life would be like if they never got married! When he asks her what she thinks her life would be like, she says, "I realize I've just erased all the things in my life that I'm sure about", of course meaning him and their kids. She asks him what he's sure about and he tells her that he's sure there's no one else he'd rather be with than her. Awww. It's this moment that's the turning point where he realizes this was the life he wanted all along.

We soon see him happily interacting with the kids and thriving at work where he seems to be getting into the swing of his alternate life. One day, while at work, his old boss, Peter Lassiter, pulls up in his fancy car with a flat tire (why would this guy who lives in Manhattan come to this place? Aren't there auto shops much, much closer? Oh, I know it's all for the plot, but I just like to complain about stuff like that). Jack tells him he knows who he is because he's seen him on CNBC. He invites him to his office and tells him his business strategy and how he would have done things differently with the merger (which has been on the news). If I were this Lassiter character, I would be wondering why this tires salesman was giving me business pointers and at first it doesn't seem like he's interested in what Jack has to say, but then he tells him to drop off his car at his office building when the tire is fixed and they'll have a meeting. It's ridiculous that this high executive businessman is letting this random guy have a job interview. I would think people in his position are much more fussy about who they're interviewing/hiring. 

When Jack shows up at his old stomping grounds, he meets the new and improved Alan Mintz who is now in a business it (as opposed to the sweater and slacks he wore previously in the other timeline). He tells both Peter and Alan he used to be a broker, but now he sells tires. The way they were talking to him and asking him questions such as how his sales are reminded me of an episode of Shark Tank. He basically tells them it doesn't matter if he works on Wall Street or Main Street, that people are people and he knows people and starts rattling off things he knows about them as proof that he's super perceptive. 

Alan shows Jack around, but once they are alone, he cuts the friendly act and demand to know how he found out the information abut them. He asks Jack if he went through Lassiter's wallet or found the information online, only he phrases is as "Did you surf some Net?" Oh, that gave me a good chuckle. Did some eighty-year-old write the script and didn't know how the Internet worked back in '99/'00? It was just so awkwardly worded! 

It looks like Jack was able to get a job and instead of talking it over with Kate first, he decides to let her know by surprising her. He does this by taking her to a swank Manhattan apartment and tells her about the job and they could be staying there nearly rent-free until they find a place of their own. Even though their financial situation would vastly approve, she's not happy about this because she likes the school Annie goes to (even though he told her they could get the kids into some of the best schools in the country) and she doesn't want to raise the kids in New York. I can understand not wanting to raise kids if you're tight on money, but their new digs looks plenty spacious and their new life would be pretty plush. In other words, I guess what I'm saying is that I think Kate is worrying about things she shouldn't be worrying about. I can understand her not wanting to move if Annie was in high school and didn't want their daughter to switch schools, but she's only in kindergarten! Also, she seems to be overly sentimental of the house they live in. Later, she tells him (while crying, no less) how she imagined them growing old together in their house and having their grandchildren visit them. Then she tells him she'll accept it if he wants to take the job while taking him on a major guilt trip: "If you need this,I will take these kids from a life they love and I'll take myself from the only home we've ever shared together and I'll move wherever you need to go." She'll do this because she loves him and because she chooses them. ("I choose us.")

There's a sweet moment of Jack playing in the snow with his daughter and he's acting like the dad Annie is used to because Annie tells him, "I knew you'd come back." 

Because it's snowed, he's picking up rock salt at a convenience store and is startled when he sees Cash is working there as the clerk (he is now traded his fashionable garb for a polyester uniform). Cash greets him with a big smile and comments that he's gotten "all domestic" since he's buying rock sat and that he "must have really figured things out." Jack just replies, "you're not sending me back." Cash reminds him that this was only a glimpse and "a glimpse, by definition, is an impermanent thing." This is when Jack knows that this is his last night in this timeline of his life. He has a moment with each kid and tells Kate he wants her to promise him that she'll always remember him how he is right now in this moment. He's doing everything he can not to fall asleep: he takes the dog for a late night walk in the cold air and instead of going to bed, he sits in the armchair in their bedroom trying not to fall asleep. Every time his eyes start to close, he snaps them back open, but he does eventually nod off and when he wakes up he's back in his own bed in his luxurious apartment without any kids or a wife. He's surprised to find out it's Christmas Day and drives to the house where he lived with his family, but now someone else lives there and tells him nobody named Kate lives there.

He calls information where he gets Kate's address. When he arrives at her apartment, there are boxes and people everywhere and it's obvious she's moving. (Who moves on Christmas Day? It's almost worse than having an important business meeting on Christmas Day!) And she's not just moving to another zip code, she's moving all the way to Paris, oh, la, la! Does Kate even know French? If she does, why were we never told this? She tells Jack that her law firm has an offie there and she'll be in charge of it. Do you remember way back in the original timeline when Jack was told Kate had called him at his office, but he never returned her call? Well, she has a box of his stuff and I think she was calling him to tell him she was moving and wanted to give him his stuff back. Good Lord, it's been thirteen years...unless it's super sentimental, just toss it. If he's lived without these items for this long, I'm sure he doesn't really care about them that much. 

Even though she's super busy, he chats with her. He asks her if she's married and has a big smile on his face when she tells him she never got married. He asks her if she ever thinks about them and what could have been, but she's too distracted with packing and just tells him he should look her up if he's ever in Paris. You gotta feel bad for the guy.

He does find out her flight is leaving at seven that night which comes in handy when he decides he's going to run to her gate as she's standing in line to board the plane and shouts at her not to get on the plane. He's really lucky...one year later and he would not be able to do this! She steps out of the line and asks him if he needs closure after all these years and reassures him that even though she was heartbroken after he left, she got over it and moved on and suggests that he do the same. She gets back in line, and desperate, I suppose, he just starts talking crazy: "We have a house in Jersey. We have two kids..." He then proceeds to tell her about the alternate reality he lived with her as though they are living this live right here and now. If I were her, I would be a little concerned! After telling her every little detail about their two children (including names and their personality traits), he tells her he's seen what they could be like together and ends with "I choose us" which is a callback to when she told him that earlier. 

Look, I don't think he went this the right way at all. Rambling on about things that happened in an alternate universe and acting like they're true now is just going to make you look like a lunatic, but Kate just says "Okay" and decides not to take her flight so she can have a cup of coffee with Jack at the airport and the movie ends with them chatting.

Of course, we're probably suppose to assume that they start dating and fall in love again and get married and have their two adorable children, but for all we know she could have decided she didn't want to pursue a relationship with him and gotten on a plane to Paris the next day. C'est Paris, for God's sake! LOL, I am so cynical. 

Also, are we supposed to think this whole thing was just a dream? Think about it: he wakes up on Christmas Day and finds himself in this new life and then when he wakes up on Christmas Day back in the life he's always had (after a very long dream!), but it felt so real that he thought it was and it changed his perspective on life. I really think this movie could have worked better if it had a better script (the characters just glossing over Jack's out-of-characterness just really annoys me and it's clear the script is only calling for them to do so because they don't want to call too much attention that this is not the Jack they know) and a better director (I was shocked that the douchey Brett Ratner directed this - this kind of feel-good family Christmas film isn't his forte), I think this movie could have been a truly great Christmas movie, but it kind of gets lost in the shuffle of holiday movies and most people seem to forget about its existence. 

I really like the movie's poster:

Incognito

Mrs. Doubtfire

Director: Chris Colombus

Cast: Robin Williams, Sally Field, Pierce Brosnan, Lisa Jakub, Matthew Lawrence, Mara Wilson, Harvey Fierstein

Released: November 24, 1993

Oscar nominations: 

Makeup (won) 

This is a movie I've seen several times and it was a childhood favorite of mine. It still makes me laugh today, though if you think about it, this movie is really messed up! I don't think they could make this movie today. Not because of the transphobia (they could easily take that out), but just because it's so messed up what this guy does just to be with his children. The '90s (especially the early '90s!) were a different time. I remember seeing this in the theater with my family and it was packed. 

Daniel and Miranda Hillard (Robin Williams and Sally Field) live in a beautiful San Francisco home with their three children: fourteen-year-old Lydia (Lisa Jakub, the only other role I've known her from is Independence Day (she played Randy Quaid's daughter)); twelve-year-old Chris (Matthew Lawrence, probably best known for playing Shawn's half-brother in the later seasons of Boy Meets World); and five-year-old Natalie (Mara Wilson, who was also in Matilda and the remake of Miracle on 34th Street). We learn that Daniel's and Miranda's marriage has been rocky for quite awhile now. Miranda gets a phone call from her fussy old lady neighbor who is complaining about all the noise coming from her house. She comes home early to find her husband has given their son an elaborate birthday party complete with farm animals (the goats are eating the petunias on the front steps and the pony ate the birthday cake she had brought home), rap music blaring and hyped-up little kids on sugar (one who is even swinging from the chandelier; ooh, I would've been livid!). They get into a huge fight and this is the last straw for Miranda and she tells him she wants a divorce. He wants them to get help, but she is done with him! I never understood how these two were ever married. She is very type A, by-the-book, likes a schedule, very orderly, while he just likes to have fun! And it's said they've been having problems for fourteen years! They just never made sense as a couple to me. She tells him that they've "grown apart", they're "different", and they "have nothing in common" (that's an understatement!). 

At a court hearing, Miranda is awarded sole custody of the kids since she has the house and a career. (Daniel was fired from his job as a voice actor for an animated series at the beginning of the movie because he refused to voice a character who smoked. Miranda is a high-end interior designer, so you know she's the one bringing in the money and is able to pay for their beautiful Victorian home. I read that it sold for $4.5 million in 2016 and I'm still sure it cost a pretty penny in 1993!) The judge tells Daniel he will have visitation rights every Saturday and Daniel isn't happy about this arrangement, but he is assured that it's only temporary and that he will be assigned a court liaison to oversee his case. He has three months to get a job and a place to live and if he is deemed fit to her a parent, then the judge will consider a joint-custody arrangement. 

He finds an apartment and with the help of his court liaison, Mrs. Sellner, gets a job at a television studio where he will be boxing and shipping film reels. So now he has a place to live and a job, so he's on the right track... or is he? 

The first Saturday the kids spend at his apartment doesn't go very well. His place is a mess because many of the boxes haven't been unpacked yet. Miranda was one hour late dropping off the kids and now she's an hour early to pick them up. When they hear her honk the car outside, they get up to leave, but he yells at them to sit down and tells them, "You're on my time now. You're my goddamn kids too." 

Miranda lets herself in and sarcastically says, "Oh, Daniel, how charming" as she looks around. Rightfully, he is not happy with her and she explains her earliness, saying she has a lot of errands to run: the bank, the market, and she has to drop off an ad for a housekeeper at the newspaper office. Okay, so throughout this movie, I am on Miranda's side 99% of the time, but I can absolutely understand Daniel being angry with her here. Why doesn't she just run those errands without her three kids? She still has an hour left! I'm sure she can do all that within an hour! And she'll probably be able to get them done quicker without the kids in tow! But, of course, she needs to mention the housekeeper so Daniel can ask her about that. She tells him she wants "someone to be there when the children get home from school, to clean, possibly start dinner." She's going to pay this person $300 a week. He asks to see the ad and she reluctantly agrees. While she's distracted with the kids, he changes a couple of digits in the phone numbers. We all know what he has planned! 

But before he goes to drastic measures, he does ask her if he can take care of the kids after school. He can pick them up and they can stay with him until she gets home from work and he'll drop them off. She replies, "I'll think about it," which they all know means no. She must really hate her ex-husband if she doesn't want to save $300 a week and just have him take care of the kids! However, Miranda seems to think her decision in not letting him take care of the kids is justified when Natalie lets her know, "We're his goddamn kids too!" The icy look Miranda gives to Daniel! Mother Miranda did not like that! 

Next we get a montage of Daniel calling Miranda several times and using different voices, pretending to be someone interested in the housekeeping job who clearly isn't qualified. Even though he used different voices, I found it suspicious that Miranda never recognized any of these callers as her ex. I'm sure she's familiar with his different voices or at least would recognize his tone or something. When he finally calls as the perfect English nanny (something tells me Mary Poppins was an inspiration!), he knows Miranda is going to hire her. She tells Miranda that she has worked for the Smythe family of Elbourne, England for the last fifty years. So, two things: I looked up Elbourne, England, and no such town exists. There is a Melbourne, England (which I did not know existed; I just know the city in Australia and I think there's a Melbourne in Florida. I am kind of surprised this will not be a problem for him later, but I'll get to that when we get there). Also, how could she have worked for the Smythe family for the last fifty years? We are never really given an age for Daniel's created nanny, but later it will be mentioned that he was impersonating a sixty-year-old woman, so that means she would have been working for the Smythe family since she was ten! Maybe at the time of the call, Daniel was imagining her to be seventy or older? I don't know why I'm so invested in the timeline of a fictitious English woman, but I am! Miranda tells the caller about her children and the "perfect English nanny" lays it on a little thick calling the girls "two precious gems" and the boy "the little prince." When Miranda tells her there might be some cooking involved, she replies her only rule is that "they'll only eat, good nutritious food." Daniel must have known that would give his English nanny bonus points because Miranda has a huge grin on her face and asks her to come for an interview Monday evening at 7:30. Also, that will not be her "only rule". So even though Daniel had a whole backstory ready for his perfect nanny/housekeeper, he had forgotten to give her a name and when Miranda asks her for her name, he is caught off guard. It makes no sense why he wouldn't have a name ready, but we do get the iconic scene of him glancing at the paper and seeing the headline that reads "Police Doubt Fire Was Accidental" and getting the name that way. Just think, if he had already thought of a name ahead of time, we probably would have gotten something boring like "Imogen Potter" (lol, I just came up with the most random English name I could think of; I know Harry Potter came out after this movie, but I was thinking of Beatrix Potter). Although he needed inspiration for the last name, he comes up with Mrs. Doubtfire's first name on his own: Euphegenia. Is that even a name? It sounds very...unseemly. 

Daniel goes to see his brother, Frank (Harvey Fierstein), who we had met earlier in the movie and found out he works in theater, making costumes and masks. He asks him, "Can you make me a woman?" and he has come to the right place! I do have to wonder what he would have done if he didn't know anybody in this line of work. There's no way he could have pulled off pretending to be a totally different person without Frank's help! When Euphegenia Doubtfire is created, we only see her from the back, but we are shown close ups of Daniel putting on a padded, ample female bodysuit (Mrs. Doubtfire is a bit on the pudgy side), being fitted for a mask (which will be the thing that really sells him as being a totally different person), and zipping up the skirt.

Okay, a quick disclaimer. So obviously the pronouns are quite confusing, but I will be using she/her when talking about Mrs. Doubtfire. 

The first time the audience meets Euphegenia Doubtfire is the first time the Hillard family meets her too. (Although I went back and watched the trailer and they totally show Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire from several scenes. I feel like they would keep that hidden from audience members if this movie were made today (though it would be a totally different movie!) and the reveal of Mrs. Doubtfire would be a surprise for the audience. Miranda has the kids all line up in front of the stairs to meet her. Chris says the thing that everyone is probably thinking: "Geez, you're big for a lady." She laughs it off and tells him she played football and was the captain of the woman's team. Obviously, Daniel knows what he's doing because his son loves and plays soccer and Mrs. Doubtfire brings up Stuart Little to Natalie because he knows that's one of her favorite books. Lydia is the only one who isn't exactly charmed by Mrs. Doubtfire. She asks her mom why can't Dad take care of them. Of course, Mrs. Doubtfire has some thoughts on this! She tells Miranda that perhaps the childrens' father would be "a more appropriate person." This right there should have been Miranda's first clue! Why would this woman, who would be getting $300 a week, suggest someone else? There's no way if she were real, she would turn it down! 

Miranda tells Lydia, "If he would get a job and a decent apartment" (I thought he already had a job at this point?), Mrs. Doubtfire interrupts to say, "I'm sure you normally would encourage the children to step out of the room before you verbally bash their father." Okay, a few things here:

-I don't think Miranda was "verbally bashing" her ex.

-Would someone who was just meeting their employer for the first time really intervene like that? Sure, it might be a little uncomfortable if the mother was talking bad about their father, but she really wasn't. She does make a joke and says if she sent her kids to another room everytime she talked bad about Daniel, she might never see them again. I love how she laughs at her own joke and how stone-faced Mrs. Doubtfire is. 

I did find it a little weird that Mrs. Doubtfire called Natalie "Nattie" and Lydia ""Lydie" without anyone telling her they go by those nicknames. I was trying to think if Daniel had called them by those nicknames earlier in the movie, but couldn't remember. He does call them by those names later on in the movie (as their dad). 

After the kids have gone upstairs, Miranda tells Mrs. Doubtfire that the kids are upset with her and the Englishwoman replies, "Probably the divorce" without really thinking and when Miranda asks, "How did you know?", she replies that she can "sense" it the way Lydia talked about her father. They continued talking in the kitchen where Miranda asks her potential housekeeper if she would like some tea and Mrs. Doubtfire offers to make it. When she opens the cabinet, she goes on about the perfectly organized cubby where everything is in its place complete with name tags. Miranda tells her that her husband never appreciated it. By Mrs. Doubtfire's overly enthused tone, I could sense that. I laughed when Mrs. Doubtfire called Miranda's husband "a dolt". 

 She continues making the tea and cracks a joke that there isn't a label for everything. When Miranda points out she seems to know where everything is, Mrs. Doubtfire tells her "everything is so accessible." She brings up the divorce again and asks Miranda if her ex not appreciating her organization was the reason she divorced him. This seems like very dangerous territory! 

Miranda tells Mrs. Doubtfire that she reminds her of someone and that it feels like they've known each other for years. Mrs. Doubtfire replies, "Maybe we knew each other in another life." This drops really quickly when Miranda tells her that she would love for her to come and work for her.

When Daniel returns to his apartment still dressed as Mrs. Doubtire, Mrs. Sellner, his court liaison, is waiting for him to check on his apartment. It seems kind of late for this kind of thing. Come to think of it, so did Miranda having the meeting with Mrs. Doubtfire on a Monday night. Why not have her come over on a Sunday afternoon? But I digress. At first Daniel starts talking in his regular voice, then quickly changes to Mrs. Doubtfire's English (though, she sounds more Scottish, but my ear is untrained when it comes to the dialects of the UK) accent. She introduces herself as Daniel's sister; "his much older sister", haha, he adds that when Mrs. Sellner gives her a doubting look. She asks if Mr. Hillard is home and tells her she has an appointment with him. Mrs. Doubtfire tells her she'll go inside to get him and he'll be right there, but Mrs. Sellner offers to come in with her. Daniel isn't getting off the hook that easily! 

As Mrs. Sellner waits in the (very messy) living room, Daniel quickly goes to his room where he takes off the padded bodysuit, wig, face mask, etc. From his bedroom, he talks to Mrs. Sellner using many puns about the changes he's gone through. As he's talking to her, he puts the mask on a head of a manequinn in front of an OPEN window. Nothing can go wrong there! 

When Daniel appears (pretending he's just stepped out of the shower and and was getting dressed in his room), he tells Mrs. Sellner he has two jobs - one where he's working at an educational film and TV company and one where he's cleaning houses. Mrs. Sellner gives him a look because his own apartment is a mess. He jokes it's not his place he's cleaning. I'm surprised he mentioned the housekeeping gig because what if she had asked for the number of his employee? That would have been awkward! She doesn't, though.  She asks about his sister and he tells her she's his half-sister (probably to explain why she's so much older!) and that she's half-English and half-American. I suppose he has to say she's half-American because he's American, but Mrs. Doubtfire is giving 100% UK vibes.

Daniel mentions that his "sister" makes a great cup of tea and Mrs. Sellner asks Daniel if she could make some tea. Why Daniel doesn't tell her his sister had a long day and is getting ready for bed, I don't know. That's all he had to do. He tells her to wait right there and he'll go get his sister. As he's in his room changing back into Mrs. Doubtfire, the window is open and two kids in the apartment across from him are laughing and pointing at him. He goes to pull the blinds and this is when he knocks the head mannequin over and the mask flies down to the street below and gets ran over by a truck. 

He runs into the kitchen to start making tea, frantically looking for anything that can hide his face. This scene was so stress-inducing! He hears Mrs. Sellner asking if she can help and as Mrs. Doubtfire, shouts "No!" Just as Mrs. Sellner walks into the kitchen, he grabs a cake (don't ask why he had a whole cake in his fridge), sticks his face in it and pops up and exclaims "Hellooooo!" to Mrs. Sellner with frosting covered all her his face. We've all seen this scene; you know what I'm talking about! It always cracks me up the way he says "Hellloooo!" Transformed now into Mrs. Doubtfire, she explains to Mrs. Sellner that she's wearing her nightly meringue mask and starts pouring the tea. Oh, man, I laughed so hard when large drops of frosting plop into the tea cups. I think three fell into Mrs. Sellner's cup. Mrs. Doubtfire laughs and tells her now she's got her cream and sugar. I bet Mrs. Sellner is sorry she asked for tea in the first place! I would have been so grossed out! 

Oh, here's a fun fact: this movie takes place in April because in the kitchen you can see a calendar opened to that month. 

Frank must have had some replacement masks ready to go because in the next scene we see Daniel retrieving one from his house. 

It's Mrs. Doubtfire's first day on the job and when she arrives the kids are watching The Dick Van Dyke Show. I'm sorry, but no. No kid from the '90s (or any time) would be watching some black and white comedy from the '60s. This was probably the only show they could get the rights to. These '90s kids would be watching Duck Tales or Animaniacs or Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?! Trust me, I was there, I know! 

Lydia isn't happy when Mrs. Doubtfire turns off the TV and tells them it's time for homework and that she's in charge from three to seven and they will " follow a schedule" and those who don't follow it will be punished. Now why didn't Daniel do this as their dad? Maybe he could have saved himself a lot of hassle if had had been a parent instead of trying to be his kids' best friend! The word "punish" has little Natalie pretty freaked out, but Lydia tells her sister their new baby-sitter is lying and she wouldn't punish them, but Mrs. Doubtfire replies, "Don't fuss with me." Heh, I chuckled with how she accentuated the "fuh" sound in fuss. I have to wonder if that was a callback to the famous Elisabeth Shue line in Adventures in Baby-Sitting, also directed by Chris Columbus. 

The next thing we see are all the kids cleaning while Mrs. Doubtfire is laying on the couch reading the paper and sipping an iced tea. Lydia is vacuuming, Chris is cleaning a wall and Natalie is polishing the job. I had to laugh at the oldest getting the easiest job. I can understand vacuuming and maybe some light dusting, but washing the wall and polishing silver? That seems a bit extreme. Why not have them do something like empty the dishwasher or take out the trash? Those seem like more realistic chores for kids to do. If I were one of those kids, I would hate Mrs. Doubtfire and I would definitely rat her out to my mom about how she made me do all these chores while she just lounged around. Lydia calls her out on it and says what she's doing is exploitation. 

While the kids are upstairs working on their homework, Mrs. Doubtfire is starting an elaborate dinner with four boiling pots on the stove (the most burners I ever use at a time is 2!) and a thick cookbook open. I had to laugh because the pages of the cookbook are severely stained. Good thing there's about a thousand pages in this book (I'm telling you, that thing is thick!) so Miranda will probably never notice unless she makes that meal. I'm not really sure why Daniel decided to cook something so complicated on his first day as Mrs. Doubtfire. We see he ordered takeout when the kids visited him in his apartment for the first time so something tells me he doesn't cook very often! There's fish in one pan and it looks very burnt and unappetizing. Mrs. Doubtfire leans in very close to and starts to smell burnt rubber. Of course the large bosoms of the body suit have gotten too close to the hot burners and catch on fire! After putting them out with pan lids, she ends up getting take out from Valenti's which is advertised as "fine restaurant and gourmet take out food" in the phone book. Ha, remember phone books? Remember how bulky and heavy and annoying they were? Remember when we had to look up numbers in the phone BOOK instead of just Googling them or asking Siri/Alexa to make a call for us? How archaic! I was listening to a podcast review of this movie and one of the hosts, when talking about this scene with the phone book, said, "How did we even survive back then?" which cracked me up. 

Anyhoo, four meals are delivered to the Hillard household and cost a total of $135.27 (there was an additional twenty bucks added for the "extra rush"). I looked up to see what that would be the equivalent to in 2024 and it would cost nearly $300! Paying $135 would be bad enough, but can you imagine having to dig out $300 from your own pocket? There goes half of Mrs. Doubtfire's first weeks' pay! 

I've seen this movie many times and I'm still not sure exactly what their dinner was. There's a salad with raspberries and the main dish appears to be noodles (some of the noodles are green, so maybe they're made with pesto?) shrimp, some kind of sauce, and carrots. I gotta be honest...this meal...doesn't look that good. 

When Miranda comes home, she is delighted because the kids were upstairs doing their homework, the house is clean, and Mrs. Doubtfire is setting up the dinner in the dining room complete with lit candles. Seriously, if Daniel had put in half the effort as Mrs. Doubtfire, he might still be married to Miranda! Or at least she wouldn't mind sharing joint custody with him. As Mrs. Doubtfire leaves, Lydia runs outside to thank her and tell her that she hasn't seen her mom that happy in a long time. It's kind of ironic (and a bit messed up) that it's Miranda's ex-husband in disguise who is making her happy. 

It's Montage Time! We see the passage of time as Daniel spends time with his kids as Mrs. Doubtfire (it's kind of sad how he sees his kids more when he's a sixty-year-old English woman than he does as their own father) set to Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like a Lady." Okay, for the longest time I thought the song was called "Do It Like a Lady." During this montage we also see Daniel in his apartment watching Julia Child as he takes notes and expands his cooking chops. 

I have yet to mention another important character in this movie! Two years before he was James Bond, Pierce Brosnan played Stuart Denmeyer, a former flame of Miranda's. He is very handsome and very successful and he has recently decided to restore a mansion on Nob Hill (lol that should have been the title if there was a sequel to Notting Hill) and wants to make it into a $500 a night B&B and has specifically asked Miranda for her expertise in decorating the interior. We will find out later that they knew each other their junior year of college. My head cannon is that they dated in college, but then he moved back to his homeland of England (Pierce Brosnan is actually Irish, which I did not know!) and then she met Daniel and eventually married him. During Daniel's stint as Mrs. Doubtfire, Miranda and Stuart start seeing each other. Yes, it does seem a bit fast for her to start dating so soon after getting a divorce, but it's all for the purpose of the plot of the movie and it's not like Miranda and Stuart are engaged at the end of the movie (my other head canon is that they do eventually get married...I think Miranda deserves a happy ending with what she went through in this movie!).

Daniel is aware that Miranda is seeing Stuart because we see him as Mrs. Doubtfire looking out the window to see him bringing Miranda home. The first time he meets Stuart is also as Mrs. Doubtfire (because why would Miranda introduce her new beau to her ex?) when she comes to the house and Stuart is there, also meeting the kids for the first time. Stuart tells Mrs. Doubtfire that Miranda has been raving about her; she replies, "She's never mentioned you", heh. Stuart tells her that he was raised in London and asks what part of England she's from and she replies, "Here and there, all over really" and he tells her that her accent is "a little muddled." Luckily for Daniel, the fictional town of Elbourne, England is never brought up. 

Miranda chats with her, all giddy, telling her that Stuart is a friend and she doesn't know what's happening with their relationship, but she's clearing glowing over him and asks Mrs. Doubtfire if she thinks he's fabulous and her housekeeper replies, "Oh, kind of, if you like that rugged, handsome type." Miranda tells her that Stuart wants to go out for drinks and thinks that's harmless, but Mrs. Doubtfire disagrees and tells her employer that she thinks it's too soon and she needs "to give [her] divorce some time". I'm really not sure why Miranda is getting dating/relationship advice from her housekeeper, especially when she's only been working for her for only a couple of months by this point. Mrs. Doubtfire definitely crosses the line when she tells Miranda she needs "to let [her] sheets cool down before she brings someone else into the bed." If I were Miranda, I'd be telling Mrs. D. to mind her own damn business! Instead, Miranda just asks her how long after Mr. Doubtfire died she started to feel any desire for anyone else and Mrs. Doubtfire replies, "Never", because of course! She seems to shame Miranda for having any thoughts of being with another man which just seems so out of line that I'm surprised Miranda isn't more offended by this. Of course, (spoiler ahead, but we all know what happens) after she finds out that this was her ex the whole time ("the whole time?") this conversation will make a lot more sense since he's obviously jealous. 

So it's around this point in the movie when Lydia and Chris find out that Mrs. Doubtfire is actually their father. It happens when she uses the bathroom and Chris also has to go and he just barges in even though the door is closed. Well, does he ever get the surprise when he sees Mrs. Doubtfire urinating standing up! He freaks out and runs to Lydia's room. Mrs. Doubtfire comes in and tells them, "I'm not who you think I am." Chris replies, "No sh*t" and in his normal voice, their father says, "Watch your mouth, young man" and that's when they figure out it's their dad and he admits it's him. I'm not sure why he just didn't admit it was him right after Chris discovered Mrs. Doubtfire was not a woman. He tells them they can't tell their mom or Natalie. In the recent words of Chris, no sh*t! He does acknowledge that what he's doing is highly illegal because he mentions if their mother finds out, he'll "only be able to see [them] through a plate glass." 

Looking back, I'm not really sure why they had the two oldest kids discover their new nanny was actually their dad. I don't think they ever admit to their mom they knew it was their dad (at least it's now shown onscreen if they do) and nothing really comes of them knowing it's really him. It would have made more sense if them knowing it was their dad came back into the plot. Like, perhaps if they knew he would be going to their mom's birthday dinner with them as Mrs. Doubtfire and also had an important job interview as himself at the same restaurant at the same time, they could have helped him make up excuses (as Mrs. Doubtfire) to leave the table for long periods of time. 

We get another scene of Miranda having a heart to heart with Mrs. Doubtfire and they get on the subject of marriage which turns to Daniel and she pretty much asks her what happened with her marriage. Miranda tells her at first he was "romantic and passionate" and Mrs. Doubtfire interjects to tell her "he sounds like an absolute stud", haha. She apologizes for being rude in advance, then want to know "how he was on a scale of 1-10." Again, I would tell her to mind her own business, but Miranda just replies that he was "okay" (heh) and continues to say, "It was Daniel's spontaneity and his energy [she] fell in love with" and adds that he was funny and could always make her laugh, but after a few years, everything stopped being funny. She was working all the time while he was between jobs, she never got to see the kids, and the house was always a mess, and often cried herself to sleep. Poor Miranda! That sounds rough. Again, I still don't understand how these two ended up married! They really don't seem like a good match. She tells her she was turning into a horrible person and didn't want her kids growing up with a mother like that and adds she's a better person when she's not with Daniel. She sure is opening up a lot to this person she's just met! I wonder if Miranda has a therapist? It sounds like she might need one. 

Meanwhile, at his other job, the TV studio where he works as himself, we see him watching a boring host of a childrens' program talking about dinosaurs in a monotone voice. How did this guy even get this job and stay on the air for so long? Daniel even makes a crack that this guy was putting him to sleep when he was a kid, so he's been on the air for awhile! He meets Jonathan Lundy, the owner and general manager of the station. This will eventually lead into Daniel doing an impromptu show on an empty set and Lundy will catch him and loves his act and will invite him out to dinner to talk about him getting his own show.

Well, it turns out that Miranda is celebrating her birthday with Stuart and the kids and they will be going to Bridges, the same restaurant the interview will be set up at on the same day at the same time! San Fransisco is a huge city so I love that both these events are happening at the same place. Of course, this turns out to be a big inconvience for Daniel when Miranda asks Mrs. Doubtfire to join them for dinner. After finding out when the dinner is, she tells her she can't, but Miranda pleads with her to join them and adds "I can't have my birthday without you." But why? Why is it so important she have her housekeeper join them? She does add that she's "part of the family now", but is she really? Daniel will see if he can reschedule the interview with Mr. Lundy, but he is booked solid. I don't know why he just doesn't make up an excuse and have Mrs. Doubtfire become sick or have to travel to England or something. 

At Bridges, he arrives with the family dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire and sees Mr. Lundy ahead of them. He hears him ask to sit in the non-smoking section (ah, yes, remember when restaurants were divided into smoking and non-smoking), so when the host asks Miranda where they would prefer to sit, Mrs. Doubtfire quickly insists they sit in the smoking section because she used to smoke and that the best way to keep from smoking "is to be around those who do smoke." If I were Miranda, I would give her a hard no, especially with three kids and one being so young! 

Under his Mrs. Doubtfire getup, Daniel is wearing a suit. That must have reeked with all that padding and fabric over it! He will get away from the table with his family (and Stuart, heh) four times. The first time is just to call the restaurant (the very same one he's already at) to ask them to give a message to Mr. Lundy that he will be late because of traffic. The other three times, Mrs. Doubtfire will make up an excuse to leave the table and goes into the restroom to change. While he's changing out of the Mrs. Doubtfire getup, they speed up the camera. They act like he's getting out of it really quick and I'm sure he's going as fast as he can, but it's gotta take some time to get out of this thing: there's the clothes, the bodysuit, the stockings and shoes, the jewelry, the wig, the mask, he's gotta wipe off the makeup. And I'm sure it's even more of a hassle to put all that stuff back on! I wonder how long the Hillard family and Stuart were waiting for Mrs. Doubtfire and how long Mr. Lundy was waiting for Daniel. I feel like a real life situation of this would not work as seamlessly as it does in the movie (well, at first it goes smoothly for him...).

The first time he meets with Mr. Lundy (and he was able to get away from his family by having Mrs. Doubtfire tell Miranda that she needed to take her medication orally (the look on Miranda's face!), he has quite a few drinks of Scotch with him, then looks over and sees his family looks bored because they're waiting for Mrs. Doubtfire to return before they order, so he makes an excuse to leave the table.

Because he's had so much to drink, when he returns as Mrs. Doubtfire, she falls out of the chair when she sits down. Pierce Brosnan looks like he's trying not to crack up. They all order and for some odd reason, Stuart orders the jambalaya, but tells the waiter not to make it to spicy because he's allergic to pepper. Since when can you order jambalaya that isn't spicy? That's the whole point of jambalaya: it's spicy! If you don't want spicy, order the white fish or something, I don't know! But don't order the freakin' jambalaya! 

Mrs. Doubtfire leaves the table again and this time when Daniel returns to the table with Mr. Lundy, he asks him why he's wearing lipstick and smells like perfume (he had doused himself earlier when getting re-dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire and apparently forgot to wipe off the lip
stick). He says he ran into a waitress he used to date and they started making out, thus the lipstick and perfume. Mr. Lundy is a dirty old man and wants to know if the girl has a "lady friend" for him and Daniel says he'll go ask, giving him an excuse to leave. 

Just after he has changed into Mrs. Doubtfire, he hears the kitchen staff say the food for the table his family is sitting at is ready, so he puts a chef coat over Mrs. Doubtfire's dress, goes into the kitchen and sprinkles the jambalaya with cayenne pepper. Only in movies and TV shows does this happen where someone can walk into a kitchen of a restaurant and nobody will say anything. Instead of going to the family's table, he returns to Mr. Lundy's table still dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire (those Scotch's really did a number on him!) and Mr. Lundy gives him an odd look and asks, "Why in God's name are you dressed like a woman?" Daniel does some pretty quick thinking and introduces him to Euphegenia Doubtfire, the new host for the children's TV show. Luckily for him, Mr. Lundy seems to like Mrs. Doubtfire.

Meanwhile, at the other table, they decide to start eating their food without their housekeeper because Miranda doesn't want their dinner to get cold. Predictably, Stuart starts choking on the shrimp and Daniel sees this and runs across the restaurant and as he's giving him the Heimlich maneuver, the mask starts to slip off. A shrimp flies out of his mouth and lands on the table right next to little Natalie, probably scarring her for life (that girl will never have an appetite for shrimp!). I have to wonder what was the point of making Stuart allergic to cayenne pepper? It was him choking that was the problem, not an allergic reaction. Maybe they had him be allergic so Daniel would feel guilty about adding the pepper or they wanted Daniel to be the reason Stuart almost died so Daniel could see he was being way out of line? Who knows? 

By this time the mask is halfway off his face and it's obvious who Mrs. Doubtfire really is. Even Daniel knows the jig is up because he uses his normal voice to ask Stuart if he's all right. Miranda is just looking on in pure horror. I love it when when she says, "The whole time you were -- the whole time?" Best line of the movie! She is so upset and the family leaves. They barely even got to eat their dinner! 

The next scene takes us straight to the courtroom where Daniel points out he has a residence suited for children (after becoming Mrs. Doubtfire his place became a lot cleaner!) and has held down a job (of course he's talking about working at the TV studio, not being Mrs. Doubtfire!). He admits he had some "questionable behavior", but says he's "addicted to his children" which may not be the best word to use in a situation like this! He gives this very heartfelt speech, but the judge says he thinks what he just saw a "performance from a very gifted actor" and tells him he's giving full custody to Miranda. He bears more bad news, telling him he will now have supervised visits every Saturday and wants him to get psychologically evaluated and then they will reexamine the case in one year. 

Back at the Hillard home, Miranda is trying to find a new housekeeper/nanny, but no one seems as perfect as the fictitious Mrs. Doubtfire. They're all talking about how much they miss her as though she were a real person which Miranda points out she wasn't. While they're talking about her, they suddenly hear her voice coming from the other room and there on the TV is their father dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire, hosting a children's educational show. Looks like it didn't take any time at all for him to get that gig! 

In the end, Miranda talks with Daniel and he will now pick up the kids after school to take care of them until Miranda gets home from work. She got everything taken care of so it will just be them and he will be able to see them for more than one day a week. Perhaps this is what she should have done all along, but then again, if Daniel had never been Mrs. Doubtfire he wouldn't have needed an excuse to discipline his kids or make sure they eat healthy or clean the house. 

I have to wonder what would have happened if Daniel was never found out as Mrs. Doubtfire. If he had successfully passed his court case within the three months, I assume the kids would spend time with their father after school, much like the arrangement at the end of the movie, but maybe Miranda would still want Mrs. Doubtfire to clean the house for her. In that case, I'm guessing Daniel would come up with some excuse and have Mrs. Doubtfire tell her she's moving back to England. I do wonder if Lydia or Chris would ever tell their mom who Mrs. Doubtfire really was. Like, maybe ten or fifteen years from now, would they ever say, "Hey, Mom? Remember when we had that nanny for a few months about a decade ago right after you and Dad split up? Well, did you know that was actually Dad in that getup?" Hell, I wonder if they ever told her they knew it was their dad for awhile in the actual events of the movie.