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The Daytrippers, 1996
After discovering what seems to be a love letter in her husband Louis's (Stanley Tucci) things, his wife Liza (Hope Davis), confides in her family. Before she knows it, the whole family including her mother Rita (Anne Meara), her father Jim (Pat McNamara), her sister Jo (Parker Posey), and her sister's boyfriend Carl (Liev Schreiber) loads into the family station wagon and journeys into New York to track down Louis.
This film had a lot more laugh-out-loud moments, mainly courtesy of Anne Meara's overbearing Rita. At once desiring attention, seeking connection with others, and hyper-sensitive to the actions of everyone around her, her dialogue--both in delivery and the writing of it--is outlandish and at the same time, perfect. "So he's a man with no hands and the head of a dog?!" she exclaims, as Carl talks about a painfully allegorical novel he's written. As the film goes on, Carl begins to lean more and more into Rita's approval, and the two become a bizarre echo chamber of caring and compliments.
I also enjoyed the way that Liza's journey to find her husband included two different stereotypical meet-cutes. In the first, Liza speaks to an author (Campbell Scott) at her husband's agency, who tells her about a poem in a soft-spoken way that, in another film, would easily signal the beginning of a romance. Later, Liza finds herself shopping with a nice young man (Andy Brown) who has taken her family in after Rita faints. Liza accidentally knocks over some apples and the two pick them up together. The final encounter, though, is not so fun. Liza finds herself in the middle of two older women, bickering as they divvy up the remains of their recently deceased mother's apartment. As they squabble over who gets to take the Tylenol with codeine--"You took the sleeping pills! We're splitting the Tylenol with codeine!"--the whole thing begins to feel very sad.
And the final third is the only place where I really began to take some issue with the film. For the first two thirds, the way that the film leans on archetypes--the overbearing mother, the rebellious younger sister, the pompous intellectual, the silently-suffering father--but it all kind of works because the writing is pretty crisp and the actors do a great job with their delivery.
But in the last act things turn more serious, and certain characters begin to be portrayed as more nakedly villainous. It is hard to talk specifics without spoilers, but I felt that when certain archetypes become negative, it starts to feel a bit questionable. One character, in particular, has just not been given the same depth of character development. This is also one of those films that takes place in New York but every single person is white, which . . . um.
For the most part this was really charming. I was not the biggest fan of the way it turned more heavily to drama in the last act, but I would highly recommend it. There's also a fun, small turn from Marcia Gay Harden as a woman Liza meets at a party.
The Daytrippers, 1996
After discovering what seems to be a love letter in her husband Louis's (Stanley Tucci) things, his wife Liza (Hope Davis), confides in her family. Before she knows it, the whole family including her mother Rita (Anne Meara), her father Jim (Pat McNamara), her sister Jo (Parker Posey), and her sister's boyfriend Carl (Liev Schreiber) loads into the family station wagon and journeys into New York to track down Louis.
This film had a lot more laugh-out-loud moments, mainly courtesy of Anne Meara's overbearing Rita. At once desiring attention, seeking connection with others, and hyper-sensitive to the actions of everyone around her, her dialogue--both in delivery and the writing of it--is outlandish and at the same time, perfect. "So he's a man with no hands and the head of a dog?!" she exclaims, as Carl talks about a painfully allegorical novel he's written. As the film goes on, Carl begins to lean more and more into Rita's approval, and the two become a bizarre echo chamber of caring and compliments.
I also enjoyed the way that Liza's journey to find her husband included two different stereotypical meet-cutes. In the first, Liza speaks to an author (Campbell Scott) at her husband's agency, who tells her about a poem in a soft-spoken way that, in another film, would easily signal the beginning of a romance. Later, Liza finds herself shopping with a nice young man (Andy Brown) who has taken her family in after Rita faints. Liza accidentally knocks over some apples and the two pick them up together. The final encounter, though, is not so fun. Liza finds herself in the middle of two older women, bickering as they divvy up the remains of their recently deceased mother's apartment. As they squabble over who gets to take the Tylenol with codeine--"You took the sleeping pills! We're splitting the Tylenol with codeine!"--the whole thing begins to feel very sad.
And the final third is the only place where I really began to take some issue with the film. For the first two thirds, the way that the film leans on archetypes--the overbearing mother, the rebellious younger sister, the pompous intellectual, the silently-suffering father--but it all kind of works because the writing is pretty crisp and the actors do a great job with their delivery.
But in the last act things turn more serious, and certain characters begin to be portrayed as more nakedly villainous. It is hard to talk specifics without spoilers, but I felt that when certain archetypes become negative, it starts to feel a bit questionable. One character, in particular, has just not been given the same depth of character development. This is also one of those films that takes place in New York but every single person is white, which . . . um.
For the most part this was really charming. I was not the biggest fan of the way it turned more heavily to drama in the last act, but I would highly recommend it. There's also a fun, small turn from Marcia Gay Harden as a woman Liza meets at a party.