Parenthood
"You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."
Parenthood has a lot of funny moments and a couple really good laughs. It's a dramedy with an emphasis on comedy. A lot of the situations in Parenthood are relatable to my own family which is probably why I find it so funny. I'm not really a huge fan of Ron Howard films but he deserves a lot of credit for this one. He's juggling a few different storylines and he handles it well. He does focus a bit more on Gil (Steve Martin) and Helen (Dianne Wiest) than Larry (Tom Hulce) and Susan (Harley Jane Kozak) but that's okay because their stories (Gil and Helen), I think, are more common/relatable....interesting. Gil is the family man (married, father of three) who has one child that has some emotional problems and Helen is a single mom raising two teenagers who don't seem to need mom, but really do. This is a much more under control Martin than he is in The Jerk or Dirty Rotten. For the most part he plays it straight, except for maybe one scene. Helen is my favorite character by far. She has the movies best/funniest lines and they're usually uttered out of anger or frustration. Dianne Wiest is absolutely fantastic as the single mom doing her best.
Parenthood does brush up against some more serious topics but never dwells on them for too long. I guess you could say these topics are kind of brushed off or dealt with kid gloves but that's fine. If I want to watch a depressing movie about the horrors of family life, there's plenty of them out there.