MOVIE REVIEW

It Runs in the Family  (2003)

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas
Director: Fred Schepisi

Rating: PG-13

Studio: MGM

Review Posted: 4.25.03

Spoilers: Minor/Major

By Sara Michelle Fetters

"Douglas’s a Winning Family"

For over twenty years, Kirk and Michael Douglas have been searching for a script that suited their talents and allowed the esteemed father/son combo to work together. After several near misses, not to mention one high profile and near tragic stroke, comes It Runs in the Family and I’m quite pleased to say their long battle to find the perfect project luckily ended up a happy one.

Kirk and Michael play the patriarch and his son, Mitchell and Alex, of the highly successful Gromberg family of New York. Alex is a big-time corporate lawyer longing to return to the down and dirty world of inner-city politics and community activism. He’s also trying to avoid many of the same mistakes he feels his father made while raising him doing his best to navigate the tricky waters of marriage and fatherhood, all the while his wife Rebecca (Bernadette Peters) trying her best to help tug him through.

Mitchell’s problems are a bit more straightforward at this point in his life. One year after suffering a massive stroke, he’s now discovering he can’t quite do all he once did, his mobility and stamina decreasing even as his health seemingly gets better and better. If anything, Mitchell’s only real worries are that his son is wasting his talents working for the law firm he founded and bear’s his name and that his wife Evelyn (Diana Douglas) isn’t doing quite as well with kidney dialysis treatments as she claims.

On a scale of one to ten, ten being sublime and one being the truly dreadful, I have to say the trailers for It Runs in the Family are something far below the nadir number. The promotional people at MGM have somehow made this pretty straightforward societal upper crust drama look like some frightfully slapstick comedic farce. If there was one movie I was secretly dreading the press screening, this was it. So much so, actually, that I pondered for one brief moment attending the screening of The Real Cancun, but luckily I came to my senses realizing that reality television’s foray onto the big screen would be far too terrifying to bear.

Thank goodness, for this ended up being one of the more pleasant surprises I’ve had the opportunity to witness this year. Granted, It Runs in the Family isn’t going to break any box office records or win any awards, but for fairly simple household drama with a comedic undertow or two, a critic could certainly do a lot worse than this Douglas family affair.

And what a complete affair it is. Not only do Kirk and Michael finally get the chance to work together, but the younger’s mother Diana and son Cameron Douglas get in on the mix, too. In the case of the former, the return to the silver screen is a welcome one. Even though divorced from the elder Douglas for over fifty years, the two last worked together in 1955’s The Indian Fighter, the pair have so much chemistry and share such warmth it’s a shock to realize they are in fact still not married in real life. (This is also the second time Diana’s worked with her son, having once shared the frame with him in The Star Chamber.) Their relationship is filled with such genuine feeling it was completely easy to get into the genteel give and take of a marriage that’s lasted well into a fifth decade.

I wish I could say I felt the same about young Cameron’s screen presence as I do about his grandmother’s. Point-of-fact, he’s especially flimsy as Alex’s messed up eldest son Asher. If anything, it is this subplot that’s easily the movie’s weakest link. Jesse Wigutow’s script makes Asher’s college forays almost farcical, Cameron playing him as if he just stepped off the set of Fast Times at Ridgemont High wearing Sean Penn’s wardrobe and attitude. I kept feeling like it was critical that I saw some intelligent spark in this marauding buffoon of a caricature, yet none was forthcoming making it impossible to understand a blossoming affair taking place between him and a smart and sexy fellow collegian (Michelle Monaghan).

Luckily, Wigutow handles the tales of the youngest Gromberg much more delectably. Following 11-year old Eli (Rory Culkin), this might just be the film’s brightest subplot, delicately balancing the honest hormonal and inquisitive evolution of a young child on the cusp of puberty. Culkin – what is it with this family and their seemingly never-ending supply of gifted child actors – does wonders with the role. There is a quiet scene between Eli and a young crush that’s so potent and believable I couldn’t have stopped the tears had I wanted to. As cinematic first kisses go, I have to say this sweet and simple moment of fragile brevity might just be the closest to my own and, as such, managed to be intimately affecting.

Granted, It Runs in the Family doesn’t tread any new ground recent wonderment’s like The Royal Tenenbaums or Igby Goes Down (ironically starring another Culkin) haven’t already travailed much more succinctly. And, far all of Wigutow’s and director Fred Schepisi’s (Last Orders, Six Degrees of Separation) efforts they foul too many of their own pitches off to be entirely successful. The movie travels too far into a netherworld of slapstick and coincidence, a flaming floating funeral pyre and a vomit effused courting session standing out as inglorious examples that resonate far too false.

In the end, though, this really didn’t matter. As a showcase for the talented Douglas icons, It Runs in the Family is a rousing smash, especially for the 86-year old Kirk. In fact, this collaboration is the actor’s 86th film and only his second since his debilitating stroke. This is a rousing, touching, deeply personal performance, and the strong bond he shares with his son palpitates beautifully onto screen. The only regret of seeing it up there now is the sad realization this might be the only time it’s ever going to happen, the chances of the two getting this opportunity again a slight one to be sure.

Really, I could say the movie itself is much like that sad realization. I really don’t know if these two wonderful actors will ever get the chance to work together again, just as I don’t know what will ultimately befall the Gromberg family and their personal trails.

Much like life, that’s a good thing. Trying to figure out what’s going to happen day-by-day and planning for life’s twists and turns is the best a person can ask for. It Runs in the Family was good enough give me a glimpse of a family desperately trying to do the same; smart enough to know the answers it could impart immaterial to the ones people could imagine for themselves. In this day and age of movies force-feeding conclusions best left on the cutting room floor, this alone makes the Douglas’ effort worth recommending. Granted, it helps that the rest of the film makes for fine drama, getting the feel of family life just right enough to touch a nerve worth savoring.

Rating: 3 out of 4

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