Thrusting audience into America's '50s suburbia of contentment, where behind the closed doors, inconceivable horrors lurk within a perfect nuclear family, actor-turned-director Bob Balaban's first directorial effort PARENTS is a black comedy/horror melange that walks a tight rope in balancing the tonal shifts, and it is satisfactorily effective.
Displaced by his family's recent move, 10-year-old Michael Laemie (Madorsky) is a gawky kid who inclines to keep to himself, haunted by morbid thoughts and gory nightmares, he begins to suspect his parents (Quaid and Hurt) might be cannibals . Are they or aren't they? Balaban's film taunts us with ambivalence, one moment, it appears everything is a figment of Michael's wildest imagination, but when a slovenly, chain-smoking social worker (Dennis, looks out of sorts) is involved , murderous acts seems veracious.
Balaban's satirical streak runs amok with a kid's untrustworthy viewpoint, not least with the cozy but unsettling ending, intimating an affirmative answer to the big question mark hovering inside a viewer's head. It also provides ample opportunity for him to effect sundry visual techniques-like split focus, 360 degree rotating long takes, black-and-white fuzzy shots, etc.-and horror tropes-a creepy cellar, a room full of cadavers, movable meat sausages, among others.
If the material is irrefutably dark, Oedipus complex is the prime mover behind Michael's mortal repulsion toward his father, PARENTS also conspicuously basks in the sunny-side of normalcy, accompanied by easy listening tunes and a whiff of breeziness sent by Quaid, Hurt and others . Quaid is exceptionally good as a frustrated father, whose respectable, bland appearance flakes out bit by bit, and when he is pushed beside himself, he can be equally menacing with those chilling eyes behind spectacles; and Hurt adorns her domineering mannerism with exquisite daintiness , she is the mommy dearest to die for.
Largely ignored upon its release, PARENTS is worthy of a resurgence of acknowledgement for its transgressive portrayal of growing pains, or its flippant message to convert carnivores to vegetarians, either way, Balaban's film is a hoot that sends up the none-too-bizarre bedfellows of respectability and perversion.
referential entries: Paul Bartel's EATING RAOUL (1982, 6.9/10); Balaban's BERNARD AND DORIS (2006, 6.5/10).
Title: Parents
Year: 1989
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Mystery
Country: Canada, USA
Language: English
Director: Bob Balaban
Screenwriter: Christopher Hawthorne
Music: Jonathan Elias
Cinematography: Ernest Day, Robin Vidgeon
Editing: Bill Pankow
Cast:
Randy Quaid
Mary Beth Hurt
Bryan Madorsky
Sandy Dennis
London Juno
Kathryn Grody
Deborah Rush
Graham Jarvis
Rating: 6.8/10
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