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The Family Jewels (1965)

As Gilles Deleuze put it: “ If you are a prisoner of the dream of the other, you are damned,” or, closer to Deleuze’s words, “you are screwed.” 1 And it is surely the feeling that pervades one of Jerry Lewis’s most deliriously indulgent and intimately personal compositions, The Family Jewels . Released on July 1, 1965, the film tells the preposterous story of Donna Peyton (Donna Butterworth), a young heiress who must choose a legal tutor among her uncles in order to inherit her late father’s colossal fortune. Lewis stars as all six uncles, 2 but also as Donna’s loving and devoted driver and bodyguard, Willard. The successive visits Donna pays to each uncle serve as a pretext for Lewis to deliver a series of typical (and uneven) vignettes of slapstick and absurdist humour.

Gilles Deleuze at La Fémis in 1987

The Family Jewels at once allegorises Deleuze’s famous remark as much as it imparts its unpleasant affect onto the viewer. On the diegetic level, it conforms to this understanding of being caught up in someone else’s dream. Even though it doesn’t feature oneiric sequences, 3 the whole film is akin to a strange fantasy, some uneasy dream filled with doubles and grotesque characters, and whose de-multiplying of avuncular/fatherly figures would lend itself easily to a Freudian reading. The film’s mangled script, strange structure and egregious rhythm also feel like a bad but memorable dream, although the viewer, as often with Lewis, will be rewarded by moments of absurd poetry and some truly brilliant inventions. At one point, for instance, a gaggle of old ladies on a tiny plane ask the pilot to keep the volume of the music down, which he obliges, opening a small cabinet in which we find crammed a performing live band (including Lewis’s son, Gary). Later in the same scene the ladies are treated to some on-flight entertainment, a fictitious Anne Baxter vehicle, Sustenance , the universe of which is affected by the turbulences the airplane is experiencing (inverted 4D, as it were). It is through such nuggets of wacky originality (he may be riffing off of Buster Keaton, but not in a way that feels vacuously derivative) that Lewis shines best as a naïve “idiot savant” auteur, and where we can best understand the appeal of his sloppy but vibrant filmmaking to Godard and other figures of the French New Wave.

The film’s investment with death and inheritance (it opens with a mangled attempt by mask-donning mobsters to hijack a bank wagon, a straight pastiche of a late film noir such as The Killing , 1956) may also account for the uneasy, dark undertones of what otherwise purports to be a light-hearted comedy about human relations. Yet all characters except for Willard are one-sided caricatures, and the human factor is ridiculed and turned into a form of mechanical process: attempting to channel Keaton’s dynamic rapport with implements of modernity such as cameras, trains, cars, steamboats, and the like, Lewis adds to it, time and again, the industrial seriality of the modern machine. Such “proliferations” constitute one of the compelling elements to be found in the film, not in the often heavy-handed and imperfect way Lewis impersonates his avatars, but in the way he morphs, with seamless ease, from one to the other, from Willard as baseball player to Willard as limousine driver, from one uncle to the other, a de-multiplying process which carries in itself, unquestionably, the conundrum of a society of electronic and global reproduction – an exercise to which the medium of cinema lends itself perfectly. 4

More perhaps than in any other of his films, Lewis is seen here allegorising cinema at every corner, not only borrowing on the classics of slapstick and screwball comedy, but also referencing the medium in countless instances, from obvious self-reflexivity (the frame of the camera of uncle Julius – himself a quote from Lewis’s act as The Nutty Professor (1963) – framed over the lens of the film camera; the aforementioned film on the plane) to more subtle instances, such as when Willard, in an entirely gratuitous sequence, stands in for a petrol station clerk friend and literally acts as a petrol pump assistant (bumpkin accent and all) while “directing” a camping car on the lot, before crushing another customer’s car out of a mix of zeal and technical incompetence. Each of the visits by Donna to the uncles serves as a a window into another genre: the silent hijinks of Willard and young uncle James evoke Keaton in The Navigator (1924); likewise, uncle Skylark’s pool game with gangsters in a basement recalls Sherlock Junior (1924); uncle Julius is seen manning a huge, antiquated camera, evoking the prehistory of the medium; uncle Everett’s short scene suggests at once the world of attractions (the circus) and the stuff of early sound cinema (static camera work and heavy on dialogue), seemingly resentful of its vocation; uncle Eddie’s protracted airplane number is at once screwball and slapstick; the scene in which uncle Skylark and his assistant Matson narrowly escape death by dynamite is an absurdist reference to suspense and adventure films; Willard choreographing a military parade as though remote controlling puppets ridicules militaristic propaganda; much as uncle Bugsy’s segment mocks gangster films.

Viewing Lewis’ brand of revisiting earlier cinema genres as mere ironic nostalgia is an insufficient interpretive key, and one that only partly unmasks The Family Jewels ’ political implications. The film’s antics and multiple personas seem to speak to something else: the anxiety of ageing and the complex of queerness and/or belonging to a minority. By 1965 Lewis, almost 40, was no longer the charming goofy youth of the Martin & Lewis years, and was at the end of his run with Paramount pictures, unimpressed by his declining box office appeal (except in France, of course). 5 In this film his routines seem laboured and subpar, most of the gags even failing to show any actual stunts or falls (not only between the various Lewis-characters, understandably, but also in scenes involving other characters). Lewis would sustain a critical back injury that would nearly paralyse him and turn him into a painkiller addict that same year. 6 All this suffering and anxiety is felt in The Family Jewels , to an uneasy extent, and thus the filmmaker exaggerates his already arch numbers, forcibly, leaving us rather wanting to cringe than to smile.

However, the film is truly fascinating in its multi-layered (unconscious) political allegory: the mid 1960s were a time of high racial and social tensions in the US, but also a time when Hollywood came to a place of no-return where it would reinvestigate its own functioning after having gazed longingly at its idealised past – Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1948), Singing in the Rain (Stanley Donen, 1952) – and The Family Jewels speaks to this turmoil and transition in its derivative excess. More interesting still, in this respect, are the implication of playacting and multiple impersonation, a reverse version of 1920s black minstrelsy (allegorised famously in The Jazz Singer [Alan Crosland, 1927]). If an established, respected Jewish middle-class was still very much a work-in-progress in most parts of the US in the mid 1960s, those were also the years of prominent Jewish figures at last taking centre-stage, in academia and politics of course, but also, and not least, through their epigones in Hollywood (many of them however still “crypto-Jewish” or “non-Jew-ish Jews”). The constant play-acting of Lewis, turned to absurd proportions here, reminds us of another such comedian with chameleonic (yet utterly recognisable) skills: Peter Sellers, also famously impersonating four different characters in the contemporaneous Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964), and already a trickster as Lolita ’s Clare Quilty (Kubrick, 1962). This “Jewish queerness”, the expression of the complex of Jewish artists having to perform at once gentile types (as opposed, to, say, the acts of Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks) and queer figures (Lewis’ act to Dean Martin’s straight man) may be taken in The Family Jewels (a film about choice and heritage as much as it is about transformation) to the extreme, both as a mask and escape from reality (slapstick in a nutshell: the “spectacularisation” and de-dramatising of suffering and a return to childhood’s reflexes) and as a scathing account of a conformist society’s prejudices. In this sense, it is not surprising that Lewis allegedly discussed a remake of the film starring none other than John Travolta in the 2000s, at a time when another queerness was finally coming into its own as a publicly accepted and recognised voice and identity in the US.

The film’s finale most explicitly evokes the plight of the social or ethnic minority: after she has realised that Willard should be her father, Donna is confronted by the family lawyers, insisting that Willard will not do, and that she must choose one of her uncles. At the last minute, uncle Everett shows up unexpectedly, asking Donna to pick him as her new Dad. To everyone’s surprise, she agrees, and the two leave together. As they walk down the hallway, Donna reveals that she knows the truth: “uncle Everett” is actually Willard in disguise. She recognised him because, as always, his shoes are on the wrong feet.

To be accepted, Lewis suggests, we must knowingly agree to the terms of becoming prisoners of the other’s dream and fantasy. And in order to do so, we must pretend that we are somebody else, much as Willard has to parade as Everett to gain lawful tutelage over Donna and share in her immense fortune. Acceptance, or even survival, is in deception and tricking the other – a lie, to be sure, but one that does not constitute false testimony or can be harmful to anyone. The stratagem may go against a form of engrained Christian morals, but it does not constitute a moral fault. It allows one to retain one’s “secret” identity, all the while engaging in the wager of entering the other’s dream, yet refusing to be completely prisoner of it. This reminds us of the way in which many minorities—here, Jewish people—had to parade as WASPs or Catholics for decades or even centuries, or else be ostracised to ghettos and pales of settlements, or find themselves relegated to “baser” fields such as vaudeville or second-class music performing (as was pointedly the case with Lewis’ Russian émigré-parents), a complex and fraught nexus from which, of course, the problematic greatness of early Hollywood would partly emerge. Such is the sobering political statement and surprisingly deep moral of a film that could have been great, had Lewis had the humility to relinquish parts of its design and control to a less indulgent filmmaker. However powerful his desire for autonomy and authenticity, and however fascinating the things he had to say in the guise of farce, Jerry Lewis failed to accept that retaining control and independence never was a guarantee against the perils of the great obscure dream of Hollywood cinema.

The Family Jewels (Jerry Lewis, USA, 1965, 98min, colour) Director: Jerry Lewis Script: Jerry Lewis and Bill Richmond Cinematography: W. Wallace Kelley Sound: Charles Grenzbach and Hugo Greznbach Music: Pete King Editing: John Woodcock Cast: Jerry Lewis (Willard Woodward, James Peyton, Everett Peyton, Julius Peyton, Eddie Peyton, Skylock Peyton, “Bugsy” Peyton), Donna Butterworth (Donna Peyton), Sebastian Cabot (Dr. Matson), Milton Frome (Pilot) Producer: Jerry Lewis

The Family Jewels  is screening as part of the ‘Jerry Lewis: The Total Filmmaker’ program at the 2016 Melbourne International Film Festival (28 July – 14 August 2016). Find out more and purchase tickets here .

• Deleuze’s words are “ Si vous êtes pris dans le rêve de l’autre, vous êtes foutu,” which most accurately translates as “If you are caught up in someone else’s dream, you are screwed.” The phrase comes from his lecture “Qu’est-ce que l’acte de création” at the La Fémis film school in Paris, 1987, which is now available for viewing at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OyuMJMrCRw ↩
• Actually, Lewis plays eight parts in the film, doubling up duty as uncle James, the sea captain and former Navy member, shown as his old contemporaneous self as well as, in the film’s lone flashback, his younger self on a sinking ferry during WWII. The other uncles are Everett, a clown who despises children; Julius, a professional photographer of female models; Eddie, a pilot who owns his own airline (“Eddie’s Airways, the Airline for the Birds”) consisting of one Ford Trimotor; Skylark, a Holmesian detective with a thick (and fake) British accent; and Bugsy, a gangster allegedly murdered by the mob. ↩
• In Cinema 2: The Time-Image , Deleuze explains at length the different forms of dream and dream structures to be found in Hollywood musicals and comedies of the post-War era. The philosopher calls “implied dreams” such instances without an explicit oneiric diegetic frame of reference. See Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image , trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), pp. 44-67. ↩
• As Deleuze observed, Lewis’s comic genius had to do with the way in which it proposed a new take on the machine for the time image—both in terms of diegesis and structure/discourse: a cyber-mechanic hero in the line of Buster Keaton’s ‘great form’ in the movement image. ↩
• Paramount’s new executives felt no further need for the Lewis comedies and did not wish to renew his 1959 profit sharing contract. Lewis would move on to work with Columbia Pictures the following year. ↩
• Lewis sustained this critical back injury when he fell from a piano while performing at the Sands Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip on March 20, 1965. ↩

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The Family Jewels Reviews

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• Comedy, Kids
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Jerry Lewis mugs through seven characterizations in this tale of a child heiress (Donna Butterworth) seeking a foster father. Dr. Matson: Sebastian Cabot. Pilot: Milton Frome. Joe: Herbie Faye. Clown: Gene Baylos. Attorneys: Neil Hamilton, Jay Adler. Star of "Sustenance": Anne Baxter. Lewis also directed.

Depending on your sentiments about Jerry Lewis, the film is either wonderful or a nightmare. The spunky Lewis produced, directed, wrote, and acted in seven roles in this nutty comedy. Nine-year-old Butterworth, one of the most annoying child actors in the history of cinema, inherits $30 million and must decide which uncle she wants as her guardian. She has a choice of Lewis' seven characters. If a case is to be made for Lewis' comic genius, this could well be the deciding factor.

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The Family Jewels

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• Duration: 100 mins

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• Director: Jerry Lewis
• Screenwriter: Jerry Lewis, Bill Richmond
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The Family Jewels (1965)

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Description by Wikipedia

The Family Jewels is a 1965 American comedy film. It was filmed from January 18 to April 2, 1965, and was released by Paramount Pictures on July 1, 1965. The film was co-written, directed, and produced by Jerry Lewis who also played seven roles in the film. Lewis' co-star, Donna Butterworth, made only one other film, Paradise, Hawaiian Style, with Elvis Presley. Gary Lewis & The Playboys have a cameo in which they sing "Little Miss Go-Go"; their hit song "This Diamond Ring" is also featured.

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Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.

Nine-year-old Donna Peyton is orphaned when her father dies and leaves her with a $30 million fortune. Her late father’s attorney, John Wyman, explains that she must visit each of her six uncles (all played by Jerry Lewis) and decide which of them will become her new “father”.

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The Family Jewels (1965) Stream and Watch Online

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Want to behold the glory that is ' The Family Jewels ' on your TV, phone, or tablet? Tracking down a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or view the Jerry Lewis-directed movie via subscription can be a huge pain, so we here at Moviefone want to take the pressure off. We've listed a number of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription choices - along with the availability of 'The Family Jewels' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into the nitty-gritty of how you can watch 'The Family Jewels' right now, here are some particulars about the Paramount Pictures comedy flick. Released July 1st, 1965, 'The Family Jewels' stars Jerry Lewis , Donna Butterworth , Sebastian Cabot , Neil Hamilton The NR movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 39 min, and received a user score of 64 (out of 100) on TMDb, which assembled reviews from 65 knowledgeable users. Curious to know what the movie's about? Here's the plot: "A young heiress must choose between six uncles, one of which is up to no good and out to harm the girl's beloved bodyguard who practically raised her." 'The Family Jewels' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Apple iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Amazon Video, Hoopla, Google Play Movies, and Pluto TV .

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The Family Jewels

• A young heiress must choose among six uncles, one of whom is up to no good and out to harm the girl's beloved bodyguard who practically raised her.
• Nine-year-old Donna Peyton is orphaned when her father dies and leaves her with a $30 million fortune. Her late father's attorney, John Wyman, explains that she must visit each of her six uncles (all played by Jerry Lewis) and decide which of them will become her new "father." — Ray Hamel <[email protected]>

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FAMILY JEWELS, THE

• Post author: eenableadmin
• Post published: August 5, 2019
• Post category: Uncategorized

FAMILY JEWELS, THE (director/writer: Jerry Lewis; screenwriter: Bill Richmond; cinematographer: W. Wallace Kelley; editor: John Woodcock; music: Pete King; cast: Jerry Lewis Jerry Lewis (Willard the chauffeur/Donna’s six uncles), Donna Butterworth (Donna Peyton), Sebastian Cabot (Dr. Matson), Neil Hamilton (Attorney), Jay Adler (Mr. Lyman, Attorney), Robert Strauss (Pool Hall Owner), Gene Baylos (Clown), Herbie Faye (Joe), Milton Frome (Pilot); Runtime: 99; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Jerry Lewis; Paramount; 1965) “Since I find one Jerry Lewis too much, seven of them was way too much for me to handle.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

The Family Jewels follows along the lines of the much superior multiple role comedy of Alec Guinness’s eight-role one in the 1949 Kind Hearts and Coronets. Jerry Lewis (“The Bellboy”/”The Patsy”/”The Nutty Professor”) directs, produces, stars and cowrites it with Bill Richmond. The slight plot is carried out in episodic scenes, with some laughter generated but too many skits falling flat in this uneven comedy. Though Lewis puts forth a tour de force performance playing seven roles in disguise, the film seems to drag in spots and it also takes a long time to set up an obvious joke that hardly seemed worth the wait.

The story has the sweet 10-year-old, Donna Peyton (Donna Butterworth), a rich industrialist’s orphaned daughter, pick one of six wacky uncles (all played by Jerry Lewis) to be her guardian. The heiress, set to inherit 30 million dollars, visits each for a two week stay and is accompanied by the family chauffeur, bodyguard and loving father figure Willard (Jerry Lewis).

The uncles include a daffy but kindhearted sea captain; a depressing clown who hates kids and quits the circus to dwell in Switzerland; a spastic photographer of beautiful models; the funniest uncle, a Terry-Thomas like bumbling airplane pilot of a junk plane attempting to take a bunch of old biddies to Chicago; the photographer’s twin brother, a dizzy Sherlock Holmes type of effete private detective assisted by Dr. Matson (Sebastian Cabot), who is a Dr. Watson type; and a gangster uncle who was thought to be deceased but resurfaces to kidnap Donna for the loot. The film’s funniest bit has the gangster uncle take off his ‘funny mask’ disguise to reveal a face even uglier beneath.

Since I find one Jerry Lewis too much, seven of them was way too much for me to handle. It had a workable premise to elicit comedy, which it did at times, but it was slow developing and too much sentimentality seeped through for it to be that appealing, in my opinion, to anyone but diehard Lewis fans and those who might live in France.

REVIEWED ON 7/25/2007 GRADE: C+

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ

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The Family Jewels

A young heiress must choose between six uncles, one of which is up to no good and out to harm the girl's beloved bodyguard who practically raised her.

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July 1, 1965,

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Jerry Lewis, Donna Butterworth, Sebastian Cabot, Neil Hamilton, Jay Adler, Anne Baxter

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• Video-Reviewmaster.com Steve Crum Jerry Lewis romp that gives him multiple characters for laughs.
• Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Dennis Schwartz Since I find one Jerry Lewis too much, seven of them was way too much for me to handle.
• Slant Magazine Eric Henderson With The Family Jewels, Lewis seems more willing than ever to acknowledge his own hostility towards being dismissed as a kids' entertainer.
• New Yorker Richard Brody Lewis makes the camera a prism to break out the divergent, and even conflicting, strands of his own character.

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‘nutcrackers’ review: ben stiller stumbles onto an unexpected paternal side in david gordon green’s sweet but flimsy fish-out-of-water comedy.

A work-obsessed Chicago real estate developer gets stuck on his late sister’s Ohio farm playing guardian to four rambunctious nephews in this Toronto festival opener.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

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Green acknowledges a debt to youth films like The Bad News Bears and Breaking Away , expressing his desire to tell a story without cynicism, in which the young characters are unencumbered by the usual movie-ish gloss. In that aspect, he succeeds thanks to the spontaneity of the Janson brothers, who are clearly in their element playing unruly, home-schooled pranksters and looking after the pets and livestock that roam freely in and out of the messy house.

Renamed the Kicklighters for this fictional experiment, they range from Justice (Homer Janson) who’s 12; middle child Junior (Ulysses Janson), 10; and 8-year-old twins Samuel and Simon (Atlas and Arlo Janson).

Another of the films Green cites as an influence is Uncle Buck , and Stiller’s Michael in many ways serves a similar function to John Candy’s title character in that comedy. Except that Michael is no boozing slob. But nor is he a classic Stiller neurotic. A joyless real estate developer, he rolls into Ohio in his ostentatious yellow Porsche expecting to sign a few papers authorizing the foster-family placement of his nephews — orphaned when both parents were killed in a car accident. But things don’t go so smoothly.

Michael, or Mike, as the brothers insist on calling him once they finally decide to speak to him, is less than thrilled to be stuck looking after four near-feral children instead of being back in Chicago finalizing a major real estate deal he’s been working on for six years. He knows nothing about them and all they seem to know about him is that their mother once said he was incapable of love.

The Kicklighter boys are a fun collective presence, maintaining a close-knit bond even if Justice sidles off into occasional solitude, nursing a crush on Mia (Maren Heisler), a girl from dance class. All but the eldest have long golden hair, which gives them an ethereal aura in contrast to the voracious appetite for chaos that makes them such a handful.

The Jansons being nonprofessional actors, their dialogue is often mumbled and lost. But they make up for it with the authenticity of their connection to the film’s world and their bone-deep unity as actual siblings, often all talking at once.

There’s charm in the way Michael’s final walls of resistance are broken down, via a performance the boys stage in town of The Nutcracker’s Mustache , their own radical rewrite of the Tchaikovsky ballet. That also serves as a tribute to their deceased parents, a melancholy note of loss that otherwise goes mostly unexplored.

Perhaps in order not to give the boys too much heavy lifting in the acting department, the script generally is less interested in the brothers’ grief than in Michael’s rediscovery of a heart, an organ obviously not required in the soulless world of real estate. He lightens up over fond childhood remembrances of playing with his younger sister, a part of his life and a central figure in it that he had archived away.

Nutcrackers is not exactly robust as uplifting family comedies go, but for audiences willing to get in sync with Green’s free-flowing groove, the emotional payoff will be affecting.

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‘Nutcrackers’ Review: Ben Stiller Gets Saddled with a Farm and Four Rowdy Kids in Easy-Target Heart-Tugger

Inspired by irreverent family movies from his youth, David Gordon Green delivers a predictable adoption comedy featuring four boys who behave like barn animals.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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No doubt, the Janson brothers — Homer, Ulysses, Atlas and Arlo — are lovely, well-behaved kids in real life. (No sanity-respecting director would cast them in a movie if that weren’t the case.) Few would say the same about the undisciplined orphans these four boys play in director David Gordon Green ’s odd-choice Toronto Film Festival opener, “ Nutcrackers ”: a near-feral wolfpack who depend on their uptight uncle, Michael Maxwell ( Ben Stiller ), to spare them the indignity of an orphanage after their parents both die in a car accident.

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“I guess what mom said about you is true,” Justice challenges his uncle. “She said you’re incapable of love.” If you believe that to be true, or simply can’t wait to see Stiller’s character prove Justice wrong, then “Nutcrackers” should make for a delightful holiday surprise. More cynical viewers will likely see the innocuous family movie as something else: a nostalgic “one for me” project from Green, who takes a break from ruining classic horror franchises (“Halloween” and “The Exorcist”) to honor a genre he grew up on — what Green describes as “lost treasures like “‘Six Pack’ and ‘Kidco.’”

Shooting on 35mm film, Green clearly wants to reconnect with a time when movies let kids go rogue, though the result lands closer to Cameron Crowe’s sappy crowd-pleaser “We Bought a Zoo” than “The Bad News Bears.” After spending his first night at the Kicklighter home, Michael awakens to find the brothers mud-dogging in his Porsche. How does such a guy, who seems more concerned about his car than his sister’s children, grow up fast enough to find a solution? Green and screenwriter Leland Douglas accelerate Michael’s transformation by casting Linda Cardellini as the family services worker helping to locate a foster family.

“Some people can’t have children. Their bodies won’t let them,” she tells Michael, trying to convince him that his headache would make other people happy. During his time at his sister’s, Michael proactively tries to pawn the kids off on others. There’s Aloysius Wilmington (Toby Huss), a wealthy local who has everything … except kids of his own, and Rose (Edi Patterson), who’s worked out a scheme whereby each of her fosters nets her $800/month in government support. She wouldn’t mind adding four more boys to her roster.

None of these solutions feel right, though “Nutcrackers” never makes the case that Michael would be a better option. He’s not only selfish, but completely inexperienced, both with parenting and life on the farm — and the implication is that whoever adopts the Kicklighter kids will be responsible for all their animals as well. That includes two pigs, one guinea pig, several goats, a dog (or several) and birds of all kinds, including a flock of chickens that Michael is not at all comfortable with killing and cooking for dinner.

The laughs won’t catch anyone by surprise, as Michael slips in the mud here or falls into the pond there. Though the boys are home schooled, the only lesson he gives them is a predictably awkward one in sex ed. If Michael does wind up adopting the boys, he’ll need to figure out the farm, enroll them in school, find an entirely new job and teach them some manners — not impossible, but potentially a lot more interesting than the few days it takes to thaw his Scrooge-y heart.

Still wondering what the film’s irreverent-sounding title refers to? That would be the Christmas dance show the boys had been preparing with their mom, a well-liked local dance instructor. Undaunted by other distractions, Michael decides to see through the Kicklighters’ new-and-improved production of “The Nutcracker,” which Green treats as his big finale. What the movie needs isn’t a shaggy Christmas pageant, but the kind of catharsis one might expect when four of its characters lost their mom, and the fifth ought to be mourning his sister.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (opener), Sept. 5, 2024. Running time: 104 MIN.

• Production: A Rivulet Films presentation of a Rough House Pictures production. (World sales: UTA Independent Film Group, Los Angeles.) Producers: Rob Paris, Mike Witherill, Nate Meyer. Executive producers: Jonathan McCoy, Atilla Yücer, Kelley Sims, Jody Hill, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green. Co-producers: Randall Ehrmann, Brandon James, Andre Coutu.
• Crew: Director: David Gordon Green. Screenplay: Leland Douglas. Camera: Michael Simmonds. Editor: Colin Patton. Music: Aaron M. Fernandez Olson.
• With: Ben Stiller, Linda Cardellini, Edi Patterson, Tim Heidecker, Toby Huss, Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Atlas Janson, Arlo Janson.

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Nicole Kidman gets nasty in Netflix's beach-read thriller The Perfect Couple

The Oscar winner stars with Liev Schreiber and Eve Hewson in Netflix's adaptation of the Elin Hilderbrand thriller.

Kristen Baldwin is the TV critic for EW

In the first episode of The Perfect Couple , event planner Roger Felton speaks with police after a guest at a party hosted by his employers — world-famous author Greer Winbury ( Nicole Kidman ) and her husband, Tag ( Liev Schreiber ) — turns up dead. “Oh, they’re rich,” smirks Roger of the Winburys. “’Child sex ring on a private island’ rich. ‘I’m bored. Let’s go buy a monkey’ rich. ‘Kill someone and get away with it’ rich.”

If it isn’t clear from those venomous quips — delivered with signature panache by comedic character actor Tim Bagley, who plays Roger — The Perfect Couple (premiering Sept. 5 on Netflix ) delights in deriding its uberwealthy protagonists. Based on Elin Hilderbrand’s bestseller and adapted for the screen by Jenna Lamia ( Good Girls ), this arch and at times outlandish miniseries delivers the cheap and tasty thrills of a beach read on a lavish, prestige-streamer budget.

Seacia Pavao/Netflix

It’s the week of July 4th and a crowd of tony, East-coast society folk have descended at Summerland — Greer and Tag’s $40 million Nantucket estate — for the wedding of Benji Winbury (Billy Howle), wealthy scion, and Amelia Sacks ( Bad Sisters ' Eve Hewson), a decidedly middle-class zookeeper. Though Greer would never allow her family — including her obnoxious eldest, Tom (Jack Reynor); snooty daughter-in-law, Abby ( Dakota Fanning ); and sensitive youngest child, Will (Sam Nivola) — to be anything less than welcoming, the Winburys share an unspoken understanding that Amelia is, and always will be, an outsider. (“At least my wife matches the f---ing wallpaper,” sneers Tom.) Amelia’s only real ally, besides Benji of course, is her best friend and maid of honor, Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy), a stylish and carefree influencer.

To Greer’s intense chagrin, the social event of the season devolves into scandal when a body is found in the water the morning of Benji and Amelia’s wedding. The millionaire matriarch is left scrambling to close ranks as Nantucket Chief of Police Dan Carter (Michael Beach) and Detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin) infiltrate the compound to investigate the death. Then the everyone’s-a-suspect game begins, with a handful of Winbury-adjacent observers taken into the police station to answer questions/serve up nuggets of backstory about the family and their associates as the mystery unfolds. “He makes his own bed like a poor person,” sniffs Gosia (Irina Dubova), the Winbury’s devoted housekeeper, of Benji’s best man, Shooter Dival (Ishaan Khattar). Notes Isabel (Isabelle Adjani), a French bombshell and longtime family friend, “Greer, she has a, how would you say... a broom? Uh, no, a stick in her ass… hole.”

Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Netflix

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The Pefect Couple leans heavily on this absurd TV trope — characters who are so at ease while being interrogated by police that they pepper their answers with quips and coy asides — but the show insists that we don’t take it, or its characters, very seriously. Lamia and her writers (whose credits include Bridgerton , Pretty Little Liars , and Awkward ) have chosen a heightened approach to Hilderbrand’s original story, one that values dark, capricious comedy over straightforward mystery thrills. (The series was initially developed at Fox , the last broadcast network to put any stock in the dying art of primetime soap opera.) ((RIP Monarch , you glorious mess .))

Lamia and director Susanne Bier ( The Undoing ) know we love to watch the one-percent squirm, and Bier puts her characters under a microscope with repeated extreme close-ups — zooming in on their haunted eyes, their duplicitous mouths — as though she’s trying to use her camera to smash their polished façades. What Greer dreads most, of course, is a scene — and Perfect Couple makes her endure more than one for our enjoyment. During an intensely awkward family dinner, conversation turns from Doritos to the mysterious disappearance of Will’s former French tutor. When the ingratiating Abby attempts to smooth things over by making a comment about the wine, Greer snaps. “It really doesn’t matter,” she barks, silencing her daughter-in-law with a dismissive wave of the hand.

Liam Daniel/Netflix

It’s one of many moments where Kidman, as Greer, allows herself to be unlikable, which is something the Oscar-winning actress rarely does. In her recent TV roles, Kidman has been tormented, aggrieved, angry, sure — but just plain mean? Never. It’s a hoot to watch her embrace Greer’s underlying nastiness, which naturally stems from a Deep Dark Secret not even her family knows. Fanning has a ball as the snooty and condescending Abby, who cloaks all her insults with a sing-song lilt and a sunny smile. Reynor brings the tragicomic relief as Benji’s bullying, insecure brother Tom, and Champlin strikes just the right tone of unflappable bemusement as Detective Henry.

Alas, there isn’t much to Tag Winbury, whose chief personality traits are smoking a lot of weed and a tendency to sing pop songs at inappropriate times. Hewson and Bowle are appealing actors, but their characters are similarly underwritten and suffer from a noticeable lack of chemistry. We’re never really clear why Amelia — who ostensibly has no designs on Benji’s money — wants to marry him in the first place. But in the end, perhaps Greer Winbury is right and it really doesn’t matter. Benji, Amelia, Tag — all of them are just a catalyst for the real entertainment: Watching the rich eat their own. Grade: B

All six episodes of The Perfect Couple premiere Thursday, Sept. 5, on Netflix.

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I'll be right there review: character-driven comedy gets too wrapped up in its own chaos.

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I’ll Be Right There could have been an overly-Hollywoodified, cheesy movie. The first 20 minutes of the film enticed and concerned me. While well told, the film had all the elements that are typically exploited for overstated melodrama — a could-be deadbeat son with drug addiction, a cantankerous soon-to-be grandmother uttering quippy lines (brilliantly delivered by Succession actor Jeannie Berlin ), and an eight-month pregnant, unwed mother. The film’s structure is far from cookie-cutter , however, chronicling days in the life of a midlife-crisis-saddled protagonist in an almost vignette-like style.

I'll Be Right There

The eclectic ensemble is i'll be right there’s strongest element, great character scenes breathe life into the film.

We're immediately introduced to Wanda ( television icon Edie Falco ), the film's protagonist. However, our first moments with Wanda are barely about her , but about the eclectic bunch that she calls family. One of the film’s first scenes sees Wanda take her aging, gambling-addicted, and lifetime smoker mother Grace (Berlin) to a doctor’s appointment. This sequence’s affectionate sarcasm is written so believably, and I recognize its beats from spending time with my own extended family at Thanksgiving.

After Wanda drops Grace off, her day helping the family is far from over. She has to stop by with her pregnant daughter Sarah (Kayli Carter) and her recovering drug-addicted son, Mark (an outstanding Charlie Tahan), as phone call after phone call whisks her away from her next task. This frenetic energy really works for I’ll Be Right There , immediately aligning us with the restlessness of Wanda’s life. Wanda’s boyfriend Marshall summarizes it well after she recounts her day to him, reacting with an exhausted “ Wow, that’s a lot of people .”

In addition to these amusing one-liners and reactions, one of the strongest elements of I’ll Be Right There is the writing. While some scenes are written using cliché language, the film has the occasional scene that carries the strength of a stage play. In one such scene, the film’s women — Sarah, Wanda, and Grace — go out for ice cream and have a naturalistic, winding conversation that showcases their intergenerational bond with humor and heart. Slower moments like this flourish, and coupled with scene-stealing moments from side characters like Eugene (Jack Mulhern), the script often shines.

Sometimes I’ll Be Right There’s Intentional Messiness Gets The Better Of It

I'll be right there meanders too much in its latter half.

It's not until later that I'll Be Right There verbalizes themes previously relegated to subtext. Said themes involve Wanda’s deep attachment to her family. With this sense of responsibility to her adult children and ex-husband Henry (and his cabal of new kids), Wanda loses sight of herself along the way. To put it simply: Wanda doesn’t know what she wants.

Unlike her status in her family, Wanda is not the glue holding everything together, but a vessel for the plot.

The idea of a passive protagonist isn't inherently bad. Wanda’s narrative is relatable and is well-played by Falco. Where I’ll Be Right There falls apart is when Wanda’s meandering quality ends up projecting too much onto the layout of the narrative itself. Lost in life, the film is similarly left not knowing what to do with Wanda. Unlike her status in her family, Wanda is not the glue holding everything together, but a vessel for the plot. This leads to frustration, as Wanda is much less active and interesting than those around her.

By the end of I’ll Be Right There , all the beautifully hectic energy that gave its opening moments kinesis faded away. Its realistic, understated scenes fall away in favor of exploring Wanda’s romantic relationships. Even though her reflection is eventually said — in a frustratingly direct manner that wants to spell it out for us — Wanda is a walking contradiction. This leaves the film thematically messy, and I did not know what it wanted to say. I’ll Be Right There is worth watching for the acting and occasionally fantastic writing, but it ends on an inconclusive and unfulfilling note.

I'll Be Right There is in theaters on September 6 and on demand September 27. The film is 98 minutes long and not rated.

Wanda tries to keep her own life together while simultaneously taking care of everyone else around her.

• Naturalistic conversations carry the film
• The film's frenetic energy really works for its story
• Wanda is too passive a character
• Wanda's reflection is unnecessarily laid out to audiences too close to the end

'Nutcrackers' Review: Ben Stiller Leads a Shaggy, but Charming Family Dramedy | TIFF 2024

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Few directors have had successful careers with as many wild swings throughout as David Gordon Green has. Green started out with indie classics like George Washington and All the Real Girls before shifting to broader comedies like Pineapple Express and Your Highness . This was followed by a series of films that couldn’t be easily put into a specific box, like Prince Avalanche , the Nicolas Cage -starring Joe , and the vastly underrated Jake Gyllenhaal drama, Stronger . In the last few years, Green has taken another sharp turn, creating a new Halloween trilogy and the failed horror reboot, The Exorcist: Believer . Yet even when prioritizing horror over the last few years, he’s found time to direct episodes of The Righteous Gemstones , just one of many television projects he’s worked on with his frequent collaborator, Danny McBride . Whenever you think you might have David Gordon Green figured out, he finds a way to pull the rug out from his audience.

Green has made yet another turn with Nutcrackers starring Ben Stiller , who hasn't starred in a film since 2017's Brad's Status , and has had his own interesting career shift lately, focusing more on directing award-winning shows like Severance and Escape at Dannemora . A more straightforward family film than we've ever seen from Green before, and written by Leland Douglas , Nutcrackers is a dramedy that hits many of the notes you'd expect , but it's hard to not fall for this found family story.

What Is 'Nutcrackers' About?

Stiller stars as Mike, who works in real estate in Chicago, and has to go to Ohio to take care of his sister's kids after she passes. Mike has a big presentation coming up in a few days, and needs to figure out what to do with these four kids (played by real siblings, Homer , Ulysses , Arlo , and Atlas Janson ) so he can go back to his normal life. Yet when Mike gets to their home, he finds a quartet of wild kids who do what they want--including a recent stint sneaking into a carnival and breaking one of the rides--and in a house packed with loose animals, dirty dishes and plenty of evidence that these kids do whatever they want, whenever they want. Gretchen ( Linda Cardellini ), who works in child and family services, is struggling to find a foster family who will take four rambunctious kids, seeing Mike's supervision as a temporary solution to a permanent problem. With Mike working on a short timetable, he tries to find someone willing to take his nephews before it disrupts his life.

We've all seen films like Nutcrackers , and from that description, you can probably tell where this fairly by-the-numbers story goes . Before the world premiere screening at the Toronto International Film Festival , Green said he wanted to make a film "without viciousness or cynicism," and the type of film that was like the movies that made him fall in love with movies. In that regard, Nutcrackers certainly succeeds. It's a film that isn't interested in breaking the mold, but rather, using that mold to tell a delightful story that warms your heart, a comforting but unique take on a holiday film. Like the family at the center of the film, Nutcrackers is rough around the edges, but it's lovable in a shaggy way.

It's Great to Have Ben Stiller Back in a Charming Comedy

Nutcrackers ' tried-and-true story works because of the dynamic between Stiller and the Janson family. At first, as one would expect, this starts as a them vs. him dynamic, but as they start to warm up to each other, their awkward bond works. For example, Mike attempts to tell these kids a bedtime story, and when they demand gore and violence, he adapts and tells them the story of First Blood , which expectedly ends with nightmares. When the kids hang out on the roof of their ramshackle house, or eat nutritious meals of cheese balls and ketchup, Mike holds back, allowing these kids to do their thing, a temporary observer of the insanity that won't be his problem for much longer. Stiller's deadpan reaction is perfect for this type of situation, mixed with the Janson kids and their unhinged behavior is an ideal yin and yang to each other.

Naturally, it becomes more than that, and when it does, Nutcrackers finds its groove in the third act. Again, it's formulaic and the most predictable part of this film, yet the way Green's film captured this evolving relationship is quite well done. ​​​​​​Even though the film's denouement is a sequence that feels thrown together because the film needs a big third-act show of love, it works because of these performances and the heart that this film gives off in spades. In a way, Nutcrackers is more akin to Green's earlier indie work, reined in to focus on the narrative at hand, and at times, reminding of George Washington in its portrayal of kids who are seeking to make it in this world despite the tragedies they've already experienced.

Another Surprising Shift for David Gordon Green Mostly Pays Off

For a filmmaker who has always tried to do the unexpected, Green finds a nice balance of his sensibilities with the standard beats of a traditional family dramedy. While Green's Halloween trilogy attempted to break the rules of the franchise and go for something wholly unique for that series, or put his twist on the stoner comedy or sports film, Nutcrackers is decidedly playing along with the spirit of the films that clearly inspired it . Sometimes, a film doesn't have to challenge the preconceived norms, it can work within the boundaries of the genre to make a decent version of a story we've heard many times before. Green seems to have grown up with those films and simply wants to make his own film in this tradition, and largely does just that with Nutcrackers .

Green has reinvented himself in so many ways , and has tried so many unique endeavors, it's no surprise that Nutcrackers is mostly successful in trying something a bit more straightforward in its approach. Stiller and the Janson clan are a delight, and it's great to see Green attempt something completely different once more after this long stretch of horror films. Nutcrackers sticks to the basics, and with a story like this, it's hard to mind that too much.

Nutcrackers

Ben Stiller and David Gordon Green team up for a charming, but shaggy family drama that doesn't mind being formulaic.

• David Gordon Green attempts to make a film without cynicism and succeeds.
• Ben Stiller and this cast of children are a delight when the film centers on their growing bond.
• Nutcrackers is fairly formulaic, to the point that you probably know where this film is going from the first act.
• Some elements, like a third-act show, feel thrown in a bit too haphazardly.

Nutcrackers had its World Premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

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• David Gordon Green

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• ‘Nutcrackers’ Review: Ben Stiller & Four Young Brothers Who Have Never Acted Before Make For A Holiday Family Comedy With Laughs And Heart – Toronto Film Festival

By Pete Hammond

Pete Hammond

Awards Columnist/Chief Film Critic

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Ben Stiller just got his comedy mojo back in the most unexpected of places.

Nutcrackers , the official opening-night film of the 2024 Toronto Film Festival, is not the kind of movie you expect to see at serious film festivals, which tend to go for darker or less obviously commercial fare. So it is a bit of a surprise to see TIFF launching with a purely entertaining and heartwarming family holiday movie that will make you laugh, cry and walk out feeling good. Nothing wrong with that .

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It is a situation he couldn’t have imagined, and now he has to deal with it. Before long, he decides to find a foster home, one all four could be in together, but those “auditions” do not go well to say the least, particularly for the town’s richest man, an empty nester who with his wife might be ripe to take in the boys, that is until a nightmare visit to a Christmas party at his mansion goes terribly wrong. Back to square one. There are several sequences that border on slapstick in the tradition of this kind of kid-centric comedy, but opposite Stiller’s sincere Uncle, and four ultimately charming and winning kids (no cloying child actors in sight), it all works.

Green, shooting on 35mm and coming off several horror franchises like Halloween and The Exorcist reboot, saw something in the simplicity of this family, their farm and their small-town charm that got him to dive into a new genre, and let’s hope he brings it back to box office success. They say never work with kids or animals, but Stiller does it with abandon and anchors the madcap madness in style. It is so nice to see him in this kind of role for a change. The performances from these non-pro kids are remarkable in every way, and they are the magic elixir that really makes this cook as well as it does. Linda Cardellini , Tim Heidecker and Toby Huss lend strong, if brief, support, and there is also a very fine turn from Evi Patterson as a townsperson who could be a possible answer for these kids. Or not.

The title refers to The Nutcracker ballet, something the boys’ mother performed as a ballerina and a big finale that finds them performing in the most unusual production ever.

Nutcrackers is looking for distribution. Producers are Rob Paris, Nate Witherill, Nate Meyer.

Title: Nutcrackers Festival: Toronto (Gala Presentations) Director: David Gordon Green Screenplay: Leland Douglas Cast: Ben Stiller, Linda Cardellini, Tim Heidecker, Edi Patterson, Toby Huss, Homer Janson, Ulysses Janson, Atlas Janson, Arlo Janson Sales agent: UTA Independent Film Group Running time: 1 hr 44 mins

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