Rest in peace, Robin Williams. I feel I need to say that on the top. Mrs. Doubtfire follows the story of a chaotic yet fun-loving father David (Williams) who loves his children more than anything on earth but has not been able to hack it in acting nor can he hold down a stable job.
The film opens with Williams doing voice over work for a cartoon and his talent is immediately apparent. He skips between voices and bits to bring the characters on screen to life (shoutout Aladdin), but ends up in an argument with a producer (director maybe? this is unclear) for a choice in the voice work. His boss instructs him to stick to the script or he’s out. Williams PROMPTLY quits his job and rushes home to throw a birthday party for his middle son. In doing so, he trashes the house while his wife is at work (and we’re talking full-on petting zoo animals in the house).
Upon seeing the mass chaos in the quiet San Francisco neighborhood, a neighbor (let’s call her Karen) calls the successful businesswoman mother Miranda (Sally Field) to alert that there may be a full blown circus going on in her living room. Miranda leaves an important meeting to deal with the wreckage created by her husband.
This ends up being a final straw for Miranda who informs David she wants to divorce as the marriage clearly is not working out. During the divorce hearings with the judge, Miranda is given temporary full custody and David receives visitation rights on Saturdays for a few hours per night . The judge instructs David to find a job and new apartment for the next three months.
During a visitation, Miranda informs David she is putting an ad out in the paper for a nanny to help raise the kids on weeknights… and here is where we have to remind ourselves this is a comedy and not a suggestion of any behavior that any sensible (or moral) person would do… David takes the ad, alters two of the digits on the phone number and after the ad publishes, harasses Miranda with several characters before coming up with some hybrid Scottish/British accent claiming to be Mrs. Doubtfire and gets the job.
Now we need to talk about what works about this movie and what does not (either in the time or with more modern audiences). I’m an optimist who wants to like most things, so we’ll start with what works.
Director Christopher Columbus does family comedy very well (see Home Alone). It is very obvious he cares about children’s devleopment into wholesome and productive individuals in society. In doing so, there are constant themes of behavioral improvement for the kids. Whether that be attitudinal and behavioral corrections or increased domestic responsibilities, the kids (and I’m actually including Robin Williams in this) becoming better versions of themselves is what will determine the success of the movie.
Similar to Home Alone, there is a fair amount of effective slapstick in this film as well. That’s not easy to pull off. Even by modern standards, the effects and the hijinks look very good (although the stunt double work in the sweater-on-fire gag does not look as great in there era of 4K).
And finally, Williams’ performance is truly singular. The premise of the movie is absolutely crazy. To have ANY amount of likability in the lead given the premise of this movie is a testament to Williams’ charisma. He’s the only one who could have pulled this off. I cannot think of another actor on this planet who could have gotten close (maybe Tobias Fünke).
And now let’s get into what hasn’t aged very well… I’m not going to get too deep into the politics of it, but framing of a trans person as inherently deceptive, sexually perverted, or predatory towards children is insensitive at best and transphobic at worst. There is a normalization to this attitude that 30 years later is just tough. There’s no way around that. I could go more into this, but I’m sure there are people who have done full essays in print and video on this stating the complexity of this representation better than I ever could.
Sally Field’s position as the wet-blanket mom for trying to establish any amount of order in her children’s life is just bad. Constantly, she is positioned as the kill joy for having the audacity to tell her husband she needs help raising the kids while being teh only one with a successful career. She’s a total nag. But she has good reason to be. Her husband doesn’t have a job and throws carnivals in their living room while she is at work. At one point, David says to her after she takes the kids back to her house following visitation “thanks for the yard time, warden.” If you’re a divorcee and exchanging your kids and have the balls to throw this one at your ex-wife, I hope she tears you apart. Sheeeeeesh.
And finally, David spends the entire 3rd act of this film trying to sabotage his ex-wife’s new budding relationship with a nice and successful man in a way that would almost certainly guarantee full custody for Miranda. It cannot be overstated how shitty Daniel’s behavior is in these moments. The movie goes to great lengths to establish Daniel as not perfect, and that’s fine. He doesn’t have to be perfect. But this behavior is egregious and shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone. He pleads insanity to the judge following this. I guess that’s appropriate because no sane person would ever dream of behaving like that.
The movie does end on a high note. Given all that goes on, the best and worst of it, Daniel ends up with shared custody (impressive given he decided to represent himself). He ends up with a television job as a Mrs. Doubtfire-adjacent character*** speaking peace to children and reminding the children that their parents do love them regardless of what their relationship together looks like.
All in all, I’m glad I took the time on this one. I’m not sure that I had ever watched it start to finish before even though I feel like it has been in my life forever. I’d recommend it to children for sure and maybe a family movie night. For older audiences? Maybe if you just want some nostalgia and don’t really want or need to follow the story too terribly closely.
We miss you, Robin.
7.5/10
Available on Hulu
***Was this a drag-queen reading hour? Surprised there wasn’t picketing outside
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