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70Avoids easy shtick and saccharine conclusions, opting instead for character dynamics that the two leads deliver with consummate skill.
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70Raymond De Felitta's directing is straightforward, tactful, lyrical where necessary and never mawkish, and though Reiser's script offers no grand insights, it's full of sharply observed and funny detail.
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63The movie is sort of a sideways version of "Sideways," even down to a scene where the two men join two women for dinner. The difference is, in "Sideways" the guys desperately want to impress the women, and in The Thing About My Folks, they want to impress each other.
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63Director Raymond de Felitta, who directed a little-seen gem called "Two Family House" a few years ago, gives Falk plenty of room to do his thing. There's an underlying emotional truth even in scenes that seem terribly contrived.
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63So powerful and tender are the scenes between Falk and Dukakis that by movie's end, I was wishing that the film had been more about the marriage of Sam and Muriel and less about the father and son.
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63If only Reiser or director Raymond De Felitta had been able to resist the fart jokes and the sloppy male-bonding scenes, this could have been a terrific little movie. As it is, it's shamelessly manipulative shtick brightened by sharply drawn supporting performances.
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60Good-natured but only memorable as a platform for the amusingly feisty Peter Falk, The Thing About My Folks plies a light approach to the problems grown children face when their parents appear on the verge of divorce.
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60Falk throws himself into the part and almost single-handedly enables this comedy drama to transcend some of its sitcom limitations.
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58Thing is Woody Allen on a third-grade reading level. Neurosis abounds, but awareness doesn't, and certain ''jokes'' demand additional therapy.
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50It's the same old, same old - except with some really snappy one-liners.
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50Flirts bravely, though gratingly, with messy, complicated emotions before ultimately drowning them in a warm bath of sticky sentimentality.
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50Sweet but dramatically inert.
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50Despite the grumpy, flatulent behavior the script demands of him, Mr. Falk rises above the treacly shenanigans.
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Felitta and Reiser mean nothing but well with this project, but too many lines sound fraudulent, and Reiser, it must be said, is a hopeless ham in the reaction shot department.
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38Amateurishness -- the camera angles sometimes chop off the top of Reiser's head -- aside, The Thing About My Folks is also weirdly dated, especially with regard to technology.
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Falk isn't given anything funny to say or do, but his performance is littered with beautiful touches, tiny oases of brilliance in an entertainment desert.
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30Any goy, too, can fall for this tripe, especially if they've a fondness for mawkish cliché, sitcom pacing, popcorn psychology, and lousy cinematography.
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25It's a family comedy-drama that wants to pluck the heartstrings but keeps getting tangled in its own tinny sentiment.
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25This one's just painful.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 6
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Mixed: 0 out of 6
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Negative: 0 out of 6
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JoAnnieB.8Very funny and at the same time, very touching movie. Poolhall scenes is especially funny.
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TomM.9
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MarcJ.9