THE GREAT OUTDOORS
John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Annette Bening, Stephanie Faracy. Dir. Howard Deutch, Universal, 1988UNCLE BUCK
John Candy, Amy Madigan, MacCaulay Culkin. Dir. John Hughes, Universal, 1989
One problem with undermedicated mental illness, apart from what you'd imagine - it obliterates humor and perspective. (Ok, that's two problems. I'm a little OVERmedicated this morning, what do you want from me?)
Marijuana works on my depression&anxiety better than any of the prescription meds on which I spent the '90s and '00s trying to live. When it runs out, though, the darkness seeps back in. The anger over nothing, and everything. Things that make me laugh when I'm medicated make me ragey when not. I get wrapped up so tight I can't think for shit. I watch the Youtube movie-collecting channels I usually watch, listen to the podcasts, and snarl. Or worse, sneer.
Especially at "fun movies." Because, in that state, I am obviously fit to be arbiter of all taste everywhere, particularly the fun I'm incapable of having, I listen to people gush about movies I've never seen and on which I have no business opining, and mutter darkly.
"Why is 'fun movie' always an excuse to fetishize shitty movies,'" I grumble, "Shit, I was there in the '80s. I SAW THAT IN THE THEATRE and it sucked." Why I think having seen a movie in a movie theatre qualifies my opinion over others' is not clear, but that, of course, never slows me down.
Another sucky bit of mental illness? I don't get to disclaim all that with, "But that's not me." It is me. Or my sickness. Mental health workers always tell me not to identify by my condition, and they're right. But I do. When I'm less sick, though, when I feel even, or better, it isn't me. I hate those sneers, that elitist twaddle I cling to in pain, when my ill brain convinces me that alienating all my friends is a great plan.
When I feel good, I love checking out what other people are into. I Like friends' Fb posts about MCU shows I don't comprehend because I like that they're passionate about stuff and want to share it. It feels like I'm encouraging them to keep doing what makes them happy. Also, when I feel good I watch fun movies. Do I gush over them? You be the judge.
Not long ago I wrote up the Ryan Reynolds 'Aughts comedy WAITING, saying something along the lines of 'most every gag in this movie was insanely offensive even in the mid-Aughts, and the wrongness has only doubled over the ensuing decade, and as long as you can acknowledge the problematical without being derailed by it, this very tasteless movie is very, very funny.' My friend Joe commented that it sounded like the kind of movie he would laugh at as his teenage daughters sat there and said, "You canNOT say that! You cannot SAY that!" for 90 minutes.
I could just about let Joe's comment stand as the whole writeup. I won't, because I'm a longwinded fucker, but I could. If that tells people all they need, or if they're the kinds who would mirror Joe's girls, this is a fine place to stop.
So, Russ, you're saying THE GREAT OUTDOORS counts as a problematical '80s comedy? It's written and produced by John Hughes - of course it is. Directed by Hughes's go-to partner in wildly inappropriate, Howard Deutch, THE GREAT OUTDOORS never had a chance of being anything else.
That said, being an '80s teen (I was actually 21 when GREAT OUTDOORS dropped in Summer '88), while I do see any number of problematical moments in the movie, including Hughes's ongoing difficulty with understanding the word 'No,' I also have always found Hughes's teamups with SNL and SCTV alums hilarious. THE GREAT OUTDOORS keeps the streak alive.
That's more remarkable because, by '88, Hughes cranked out summer/teen/sex comedies in his sleep, as he clearly did for GREAT OUTDOORS. A third of the gags he recycles from VACATION and WEIRD SCIENCE, another third telegraph the payoff a mile out, and the other third are either offensively dumb or dumbly offensive. Patton Oswalt, a dog who can count to five, and I could punch this screenplay up with 'real', self-referential, meta-AF jokes, but why?
It could only harm THE GREAT OUTDOORS. I can see a thousand ways to tame some of these jokes, to make it all a little more correct, a little more aware and sensitive, but I cannot see a single way doing so wouldn't ruin the picture. I have to take problematical '80s comedies on their own, often dubious, merits. I have to shut off much of 21st century Russ and give '80s Russ his head. I have to give myself permission to have fun.
When I do, I discover things and rediscover things. I've been rediscovering my love of John Candy. This year, I've watched the STRIPES alternate cut (with the LSD scene), BREWSTER'S MILLIONS, and THE SILENT PARTNER, both for the first time. THE GREAT OUTDOORS confirms it - I love John Candy. I heard a critique of CANDY which suggested he was never really funny after SCTV because Hollywood wouldn't let him be sleazy and sarcastic and nasty. I see the point, but I disagree. He does tend to play clownish, klutzy fat guys, but I think he humanizes them moreso than, say, Chris Farley, or - god help us - Kevin James. Sleazy and sarcastic and nasty have their place, a vital place, but in my 50s I find myself responding to kindness in characters, even in comedies. Candy feels kind to me here, a good dad who wants to bond with his sons, Buck and Ben before they get too old and fool around with his wife, Connie (Stephanie Faracy) whenever they're alone. When Connie's obnoxious, wealthy-stockbroker brother Roman and his wife, Kate (Annette Bening in her film debut) arrive with their identical twin daughters and invite themselves into their family vacation, and home, and hijinks ensue, as they must, a Chi Chi LaRue-style retaliation from Candy could be uproarious, but it would be wrong. Sometimes I love to love despicable comic characters, but I also love to like average-guys, who put up with a ration of shit because, in the end, they're kind. It's not hard, particularly these days, to channel a little darkness-of-soul into a character, but coming across kind, without being a weakminded sucker, selling that, takes some work. Rather than say Candy stopped being funny, why not say he found a different way to be funny, one that powered a movie career in which he averaged three roles per year up until his untimely death? In 1991, Candy showed up in five movies. If he wasn't funny, directors and audiences didn't know it.
I'm also discovering Dan Aykroyd's shtik has endured for me, moreso than I might have thought. Sometimes, I thought Aykroyd hilarious back then. Sometimes I didn't, or maybe just didn't get it. I think we could make the same argument about post-SNL Aykroyd as post-SCTV Candy, and it holds up a little more for him, though he also kept working long after Candy died, blanding out a little more with each role. Still, if Roman just swindled Chet's family and they drove away, all incahoots and laughing at their dumb family, it could play hilariously, with a different writer. I don't think I'd like that movie as much, though. He and Candy play well off one another. It's not the birth of a new comedic tagteam, but they work together better than Aykroyd's unfortunate 1985 pairing with Chevy Chase, SPIES LIKE US, which I suffered through not long ago.
As ever when not writing for Molly Ringwald, Hughes's female characters don't get much atrention, but it's fun seeing Bening be so loose and bawdy. (Two roles later, Bening got her first Oscar nomination, Best Supporting, for THE GRIFTERS. The storied meteoric rise.) I have a fondness for Stephanie Faracy's work ever since I caught her opposite Michael McKean in an '86 CBS TV movie, CLASSIFIED LOVE, on a grounded-for-a-month Saturday night. She made me laugh a lot then, and gets a couple good lines here, but not enough. Hughes grafts a teen-lovestory straight out of PRETTY IN PINK on as a subplot for Chet's teenage son (Chris Young) and a town-girl (Lucy Deakins.) It doesn't need to exist, especially, but it spoke loud enough to the young-21 year-old watching this morning. If anything, it made GREAT OUTDOORS a little more summery. What's June without a little romance?
According to critics, THE GREAT OUTDOORS rates as dull, blah stuff, whereas Hughes's UNCLE BUCK, which he wrote and directed, is a nuanced, darker, more emotionally engaging comedy. I don't disagree, per se, but I liked THE GREAT OUTDOORS a little better. For me, it's the difference between lighthearted and lightweight. THE GREAT OUTDOORS is a bawdy, silly, lighthearted movie. UNCLE BUCK, which wants to be a character study and an ensemble comedy and a screwball romance and another teen-opera and a slapstick romp all at once, and doesn't entirely stick the landing, felt lightweight, though I sure laughed a lot, and loudest at the parts Joe's girls wouldn't like.
My relationship to a movie tends to be intensely personal. This morning, re-medicated, ctawling out of the pit again, I was wide open to what THE GREAT OUTDOORS offered. UNCLE BUCK, despite the Hughes connection, makes a strange pairing, tonally. UNCLE BUCK deserves another look, perhaps on a triple bill with WEIRD SCIENCE and RISKY BUSINESS, where it might be more congruent. And now I have an idea for what to watch Sunday...
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