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.