1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 77: The daytrippers
You’ll enjoy this movie only if you can stomach its matriarch, Rita (Anne Meara).
“She’s an insufferable scold,” complains Roger Ebert,
What ensues – a surreal excursion through darkest Manhattan – isn’t so different from Scorsese’s After Hours; only, it happens in daytime, with a station-wagonful of family members gnawing on one another. Still, I must disagree with Ebert. These people actually behave pretty civilly toward each other, all things considered. Rita is a bit monstrous, yes, but I’ve met worse. It takes a lot of aggravation before the seams in this family tear; and when they do, it’s not all Rita’s fault. Rita herself is pretty hilarious, compulsively overstepping social boundaries: usurping strangers’ hospitality, getting personal details wrong (she tells a young woman who insists on being called Cassandra, “I bet a lot of people call you Sandy”; no, they don’t, but try getting that into Rita’s brain). In a grim comedy like this one, these little outrages are the point. But you have to be in the mood.
Rita isn’t even the most insufferable character. That prize is shared by Jo’s pretentious boyfriend (an aspiring novelist) and various yuppies (career literati). Here the movie twists the knife. You’d expect hamfisted suburbanite Rita to bulldoze these people, but no, she’s in their thrall and blind to the plight of her unfortunately-paired daughters, who see the world with clearer eyes.
But maybe you don’t want to endure this Rita character for more than a few minutes. Then I recommend you see Meara in this episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Talk of a lousy mother!
It amuses me to recall that Ben Stiller is Meara’s child.
“She’s an insufferable scold,” complains Roger Ebert,
and since she’s onscreen or nearby for almost the entire film, her presence becomes unbearable. It has been said that you should never marry anyone you are not prepared to take a three-day bus trip with. I wouldn’t even get into a cab with Rita. … I do not mean to criticize Meara herself. She is, almost by definition, superb at her assignment here, which is to create an insufferable mother. The film’s problem is that she does it so well.Four people spend the day with Rita: her husband (Pat McNamara); their daughters, Eliza (Hope Davis) and Jo (Parker Posey); and Jo’s boyfriend (Liev Schreiber). They drive from Long Island into the City to track down Eliza’s office-worker husband, Louis (Stanley Tucci), who might be cheating on her. Eliza has found what appears to be a love note among Louis’s possessions. Her family members don’t take this red flag very seriously. Their trip to the City is basically a joyride. Well, who hasn’t devised some spurious errand in order to get out of the house on the day after Thanksgiving?
What ensues – a surreal excursion through darkest Manhattan – isn’t so different from Scorsese’s After Hours; only, it happens in daytime, with a station-wagonful of family members gnawing on one another. Still, I must disagree with Ebert. These people actually behave pretty civilly toward each other, all things considered. Rita is a bit monstrous, yes, but I’ve met worse. It takes a lot of aggravation before the seams in this family tear; and when they do, it’s not all Rita’s fault. Rita herself is pretty hilarious, compulsively overstepping social boundaries: usurping strangers’ hospitality, getting personal details wrong (she tells a young woman who insists on being called Cassandra, “I bet a lot of people call you Sandy”; no, they don’t, but try getting that into Rita’s brain). In a grim comedy like this one, these little outrages are the point. But you have to be in the mood.
Rita isn’t even the most insufferable character. That prize is shared by Jo’s pretentious boyfriend (an aspiring novelist) and various yuppies (career literati). Here the movie twists the knife. You’d expect hamfisted suburbanite Rita to bulldoze these people, but no, she’s in their thrall and blind to the plight of her unfortunately-paired daughters, who see the world with clearer eyes.
But maybe you don’t want to endure this Rita character for more than a few minutes. Then I recommend you see Meara in this episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Talk of a lousy mother!
It amuses me to recall that Ben Stiller is Meara’s child.