You’ve seen this movie before, and everyone knows it. “It’s a field that’s been plowed before, but it’s really heartfelt,” co-star David Rasche (HBO’s Succession) recently stated in an interview, less in defense than acknowledgment. “Heartfelt” is the key word here because “originality” is not. The premise of actor-comedian Sebastian Maniscalco’s pseudo-autobiographical family farce is almost a direct copy of Jay Roach’s Meet the Parents, the first in a trilogy that also starred Robert De Niro. It’s a familiar fish-out-of-water tale about two very different families learning to accept each other, in which the working-class Sebastian (Maniscalco) finds his plans to propose to his girlfriend, Ellie (Leslie Bibb), over a holiday weekend at the vacation estate of her rich parents (Rasche and Kim Cattrall), complicated by the unpredictable presence of his boisterous immigrant father, Salvo (Robert De Niro). If you close your eyes and imagine what such a film looks like, you could probably watch the entire thing in your head.
But familiarity isn’t always a deficit, depending on the quality of the ingredients. Despite his unimpeachable status in the canon of contemporary cinema, the past decade or so of De Niro’s career hasn’t exactly been spotless. Cinematic cursed objects like 2016’s Dirty Grandpa are so vividly terrible that they come close actively hurting his legacy. Luckily, About My Father won’t do that. It’s an entirely harmless if indeed completely derivative work that clearly comes from a place of love and genuine dedication to those involved. The laughs, consistently paced if spotty in execution, suggest a desire to create something at once universal and personal to Maniscalco’s own life. You just have to buy what he’s selling: a slick and ever-so-slightly edgy family comedy that you can take your grandparents to.
The film opens with lighthearted voiceover, establishing Sebastian’s relatively bucolic existence in Chicago, where he shares a house with his artist girlfriend Ellie (who specializes in dubious paintings of sunsets that would make Georgia O’Keeffe proud), and occasionally entertains visitations with his stubbornly emphatic father. Their relationship is amiable, but Salvo, a respected hairdresser, is no longer the “hero” that Sebastian saw him as in his youth. As an adult, Sebastian views his father’s mulish sensibilities as a potential barrier to his own happiness, and when Ellie suggests they invite Salvo to her family’s posh July 4th getaway, the younger Maniscalco initially rejects the idea. But there’s a complication: Sebastian wants to propose to Ellie over the weekend with his grandmother’s ring, and Salvo is the only one who can give it to him.
Thus, our situation is set, and hijinks ensue. Much of About My Father’s initial stretch, especially through the excessive use of voiceover, betrays its lead actor’s stand-up origins. Too many jokes feel set up for the stage rather than the screen, winking at the audience and leaning into telling rather than showing. Film is an image-based medium, yet little of Maniscalco’s screenplay, which he co-wrote with Austen Earl, utilizes visual humor.
The film’s appearance in general is a problem. There’s little, if any, personality to Laura Terruso’s direction, relying on the same bland coverage and sitcom lighting that has frustratingly pervaded so many modern studio comedies. At their worst, these choices can actually undercut the performances, such as in a pivotal moment where the camera consistently cuts away from De Niro’s genuinely affecting performance in the interest of maintaining a basic shot-reverse-shot editing pattern. Even by the standards of similarly broad entertainment, About My Father feels about as tense as staring at a welcome doormat, resolving its low-stakes conflicts within minutes of their occurrence and making it difficult to get invested in any of its various complications actually carrying true consequence. When Sebastian loses his bathing trunks during a particularly rugged round of watersports and reveals his member to his entire soon-to-be extended family, the moment is brushed off within seconds. Other supposedly cataclysmic moments involving hair and peacocks are treated with similar blitheness, as if it would be unknowable for a comedy to actually threaten the rigorously formulaic machinations of its characters.
Formidable dramatic stakes are probably not what audiences will expect from About My Father, though, and what it does offer is occasionally enjoyable. For one, De Niro is actually quite decent. The seasoned veteran is clearly operating significantly above Maniscalco’s acting caliber but manages to share heartfelt chemistry with his on-screen son. Maniscalco’s script incorporates quirks into their relationship that feel sourced from experience, such as a nighttime ritual where they spray cologne on each other before going to bed – “we can go to bed angry, but we don’t go to bed stanky,” Sebastian says at one point. It’s these humorously quirky details that end up creating the movie’s most charming moments.
The real-life Salvo has said that De Niro flew him out to the set of his and Scorsese’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon to get to know each other, even going as far as to learn actual hairdressing techniques prior to shooting. That dedication doesn’t necessarily translate into one of his best performances, but it’s a pleasure to watch him actually give some effort to a project like this. Cattrall and Rasche, experienced actors in their own right, are clearly relishing the chance to let loose with such broad material, the former especially utilizing the opportunity to steer into her character’s formidable iciness. “Family is everything,” is a statement echoed throughout the film, and as vaguely agreeable as that platitude is, you can at least tell they mean it.
Photo courtesy of Lionsgate
The post About My Father appeared first on Spectrum Culture.