OVERBOARD – CHARMING ROM-COM WITH A POSITIVE MESSAGE ABOUT TRUE WEALTH AND FAMILIES

SHORT TAKE:

Romantic comedy which teaches the lessons that all the hedonistic pleasures money can buy can not compare to the joyful satisfaction of raising a family who needs you, and that both a father and a mother are indispensable to completing a home, especially when you have children.

WHO SHOULD SEE IT:

This movie is really for late teens and 20 somethings and up. There is a little bit of language, some unmarried unseen sexual activity and conversations about condoms and infidelity. Nothing you really want to have to explain to a younger teen. But the lessons for what is the correct demographic target are definitely worth your time.

LONG TAKE:

When Nate Ruess of the band Fun was being interviewed in 2011 for their big hit single "We Are Young" one of the recurring topics was appearing to be an overnight success. No one had really heard of them until this popular single. In fact they had been touring and rehearsing and playing night clubs for 10 years. It is almost cliche to consider that most overnight successes … are not. They are the result of years, if not decades, of serious, heartbreaking, back-breaking effort.

Such is, I expect, going to be the case for Eugenio Derbez, who is the Mexican born lead in the remake of Overboard.

Overboard was originally a 1987 vehicle for Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, a real life couple, who respectively play Dean, a poor widowed carpenter with three boys and Joanna a rich woman living on a yacht. Joanna falls off her yacht and is stricken with amnesia, then taken in, in both senses of the term, by Dean. Joanna had peevishly refused to pay Dean for some carpentry work done on her yacht. So Dean decides to retrieve her from the hospital and convince her she is his wife. The relationship is completely platonic. All Dean wants her to do is enough housework, cooking and babysitting to reimburse him for the work he had done for her.

The setup is similar in the new 2018 version of Overboard, only this time the genders are switched. Kate, played by Anna Faris (Chris Pratt's ex-wife) and Leo, Eugenio Derbez, are the couple this time.

SOME SPOILERS

Kate is a struggling widow of three little girls, holding down two jobs while studying for her nursing board exam. One of her jobs is to carpet clean and she is sent out to tend to the carpets of billionaire Leonardo’s yacht. Leonardo is the playboy son of a corporate magnet. He refuses to pay her for her work and literally throws her and her equipment off his yacht – pretty much just because he can. He is not really intentionally cruel, just so self-absorbed he doesn't consider the consequences of his actions. 

Later that night, in a drunken stupor, he falls off his yacht and washes up on shore with amnesia. Leonardo’s conniving sister, Sophia, in order to get Leonardo’s share of their elderly and ill father’s corporation, decides to abandon her obnoxious brother, denying his identity in the hospital and tells everyone he was eaten by a shark. Anna and her friends see Leo on the news and concoct a plan, using forged documents and a borrowed wedding ring, to pretend that he is her wayward alcoholic husband having blacked out after a binge. She arranges for him to work several jobs in order for her to catch up on the bills, study for her exam, and pay for the equipment that he ruined.

Being a romantic comedy the outcome is pretty much a foregone conclusion. That is perfectly fine with me. I love happy ending where the only real suspense is in trying to figure out HOW the star crossed lovers are going to overcome the obstacles, not IF.

Not only are the genders of the protagonists switched in this version of Overboard but the genders of the children involved as well. This will become significant in a moment.

Gender switching doesn't always serve a useful purpose in remakes. One of the most egregiously bad examples is the Marlo Thomas version of It's a Wonderful Life. Miss Thomas, as sweet, as wonderful, and as generous a humanitarian as she is, made a terrible female George Bailey-type character in this embarrassingly bad adaptation. Similarly, Ghostbusters did not benefit and gained nothing from switching the all-male crew to an all-female crew. The verdict is still out on what the Oceans franchise is going to look like with an all female crew of con…people. And even the brilliant Helen Mirren could not bring a female Prospero up to speed in a 2010 remake of The Tempest.

However, in the case of this year’s Overboard, the switch – like one installed by a good electrician —  works. Not only does the gender switching shed some new light on the dynamics of the fish-out-of-water tale, but I think helps facilitate a more thorough examination of the theme as well as highlights the subtext.

In both of the Overboard movies, the main theme demonstrates that all the material benefits and hedonistic pleasures of the world cannot compete with the soul core satisfying responsibilities of being a good spouse and raising children in a home with a mom and a dad.

But, in addition, there is a subtle subtext which is never spoken out loud, but in conjunction with the gender switched original, becomes more obvious. In the first Overboard, Hawn’s character turns the boys’ house into a home – cleaning, decorating, nurturing, and erupting into a fiercely protective mama bear when the need arises. In the second one, Leo converts the simple home the girls have created into a castle – repairing, providing, counseling, calming the harried mother Kate down, providing the protection the family needs for the women now in his life to blossom, and intervening as a watchful papa bear when the need arises. Both movies make clear that no matter how capable the single parent, no matter the gender of the children, that the entire family thrives more readily in the circled arms of both a mother and a father.

I’ve brought this up in other blogs before, but to reiterate, this does not mean that there are not amazing single parents whose Herculean efforts are not appreciated, or that a single, caring, God fearing, hard working parent can not raise wonderful children. But those same single parents are likely to be the first ones to agree that having a mom AND a dad together to raise children is the ideal.

To be sure, both Overboards are kind of silly in their exposition, but then again, so are the setups for Aesop's Fables. What difference does it make that the vehicle is a bit cartoonish, as long as a valuable lesson is beautifully taught? For example, Leo confides to his fellow construction workers how disconnected he feels to this family, how he doesn’t really recognize Kate as his wife and how he feels like he belongs somewhere else. Understandably, the other men assume his dismay is part of a mid-life crisis and reminisce about how their married relationships have changed. But one of the older men, Vito (Jesus Ochoa) reminds Leo that, as a married man, he has a responsibility to forget all that, "be a man" and appreciate the fact he has a good job, beautiful healthy children who love him, and a wife who has (he thinks) stuck by him through thick and thin – in short to stop moaning and count all of his blessings. Good advice under any circumstances. 

I love the title with its multiple applications. Overboard: 1. how the rich protagonist gets amnesia, by falling …………, 2. refers to the cockamamie plan the poor antagonist concocts, in order to get their money they may have gone just a bit…………., and 3. reflects how the protagonists will eventually feel about each other – that they will eventually dive head first into their relationship like someone diving ………….

And speaking of over – anything, as for being an overnight success, Eugenio Derbez has been a popular actor in Mexico for some time and is no stranger to family supportive themed movies. In Instructions Not Included he plays yet another irresponsible playboy who is presented unexpectedly with a baby daughter to raise. The responsibility makes a man out of him as he decides to be a good father.

However, despite the fact that Derbez has had a thriving career in Mexican TV and film since 1994, Derbez is only just now coming to the attention of the American moviegoer with Overboard. If Mr. Derbez continues making movies like this one, I suspect he will soon be perceived as an overnight success here.

So, if you fall into the right demographic age group, go see this charming rom-com where the characters realize that a rich life is more important than having a life full of riches and which points out that children thrive best with a steady mother figure and a father figure in their lives.

NOT YOUR MOM’S FREAKY FRIDAY – THIS IS A FABULOUS PLAY!!!

In 1976 Disney came out with a really dumb movie called Freaky Friday starring Barbara Harris and a VERY young Jodie Foster about a mother and daughter who get their wish to be each other for a day. It’s the old – careful what you wish for. The daughter thinks her mom has it easy because she has all the control. The mom thinks the daughter’s position is a toddle because all she has to do all day is go to school, come home and snack. Both are, of course, wrong. But the story, as presented, is silly and superficial, trite and leans heavily on all the cliched generation gap misunderstandings. They didn’t do any better with the Shelley Long version in 1995 or the Jamie Lee Curtis version in 2003.
 
So when my husband bought tickets to go see the new musical version I had to laugh. Why not? On vacation, let’s be brainless. By intermission my husband and I turned to each other almost simultaneously and said “Our kids have GOT to see this!!!” The music is catchy with clever lyrics, the script is funny and fast paced. The acting in the one we saw with Heidi Blickenstaff as mother Katherine and Emma Hunton as daughter Ellie were absolutely brilliant and totally believable. The singing was stunning and powerful but nuanced with “attitude” and comic timing. And most importantly it has a really good PLOT! I guarantee you will see yourself somewhere in this play – as the parent, as the child, as the sibling – older or younger – or as all at some point in your life. To see yourself as others see you. Prepare to laugh – a LOT – but bring some kleenex too.
 
Instead of a throw away one-note gimmick, the tale here is of a widowed mom, Katherine, on the eve of remarriage trying to hold together her fledgling catering company and her fragile family – still traumatized and battered by the untimely death of the father 6 years before. (AGAIN underlining the importance of the DAD!!!) The father leaves his wife and daughter each a “magic” hourglass, as though knowing this day would come. And at the apex of the stresses from the wedding preparation, a journalist about to do a story on the mom’s business, the daughter’s crush on Adam, the popular guy in class, and a simple conflict in scheduling – well, they get their respective wishes. Fleshing out the cast is: an adorable 10 year old little brother, Fletcher, who is looking forward to having a Dad again; Mike, the deeply patient and understanding fiance; Katherine’s underappreciated assistant; Katherine’s oblivious parents; a timely parent-teacher meeting; some teenaged angst; a class cutting up frogs in biology class and….a treasure hunt. And yes all these elements work together like gears in a clock to make a funny, warm, insightful, catchy, brilliant little musical. I think this the best thing Disney has done in years.
 
While focusing mostly on the mother and daughter, the supporting cast is not forgotten. Each gets a moment to shine. And the ensemble group is utilized to the full as well. There are some moments in the play which would have done Mozart proud – as at times there are upwards of 6 people singing in the same song about their different agendas or perspectives – and it all makes sense (think the ensemble song “Tonight” in West Side Story or the Act II and IV octet finales in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro).
 
The songs each have a personality of their own as well – from the cocky “I Got This” where Katherine and Ellie assume pretending to be each other will be a breeze, to the lyrical heartbreaking “After All of This and Everything” which Ellie, in Katherine’s body sings to a sleeping Fletcher, to the bitterly funny “Parents Lie”, and the just plain old cute “Women and Sandwiches” which Adam sings to Fletcher in an attempt to explain the fascination women have for him and will one day have for Fletcher.
 
If you want to get a preview of Freaky Friday you can hear the songs on Youtube.
The play opened October 4, 2016 in Arlington, VA and we were blessed with being able to see the original cast leads in Houston. This play will, no doubt, make the rounds around the country – or be filmed at some point. But don’t let the previous original versions put you off. This is a truly “magical” play.
FIND and go see this play SOMEWHERE!!!!!!