{"id":3730,"date":"2024-08-29T03:00:08","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T03:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=3730"},"modified":"2024-10-14T12:31:59","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:31:59","slug":"about-my-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/29\/about-my-father\/","title":{"rendered":"About My Father"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"About My Father <\/strong>(2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (suggestive material, language, partial nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Laura Terruso\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Sebastian Maniscalco and Laura Terruso\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stephanie Economou\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rogier Stoffers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 26, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sebastian Maniscalco, Robert De Niro, Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm, David Rasche, Kim Cattrall, Brett Dier.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0The nicest thing I can say about the sporadically amusing comedy About My Father<\/strong> is that it\u2019s relatively painless. By that, I mean it doesn\u2019t aim low with its humor. None of it involves bodily fluids and only one scene has a character getting caught with his pants- or in this case, swimming trunks- down. While I appreciate the effort, it\u2019s a mediocre one at best. With Robert De Niro in the lead, it should have been better. Unfortunately, the screenplay lets him down at every predictable turn.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written by stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and inspired by his life, About My Father <\/strong>is one of those culture-clash comedies in which two disparate groups, working-class Italian-Americans and wealthy WASPs, are brought together by their children who are involved in a serious relationship. Sebastian (essentially playing himself) is the son of cranky Sicilian immigrant Salvo (De Niro), a hair stylist (don\u2019t EVER call him a barber!) and recent widower who raised his only child with an iron fist. Like his ancestors before him, he suffers from a condition commonly known as \u201cresting bitch face\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0He\u2019s finding it hard to accept that Sebastian wants to marry a girl that isn\u2019t Italian. Instead, his son\u2019s intended is Ellie (Bibb, Talladega Nights), a blonde-haired cutie who makes a living painting abstracts that resemble female genitalia (naughty but not gross, so it gets a pass). Her family is the very epitome of WASPs. Her dad Bill (Rasche, The Good House) owns a successful hotel chain which means he doesn\u2019t actually have to work. Mom Tigger (Cattrall, Sex and the City) is a senator. Take a guess what party she represents. Older brother Lucky (Holm, Workaholics) is the perfect mix of d-bag and dim bulb. He\u2019s a real American Idle. Younger brother Doug (Dier, Jane the Virgin) is a New Age nutjob who\u2019s currently studying to be a healer. He LOVES playing those sound bowls.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It seems like Ellie\u2019s family is finally starting to accept her relationship with Sebastian. They invite him to join them at their summer home for the Fourth of July weekend. He sees it as an opportunity to pop the question. All he needs is his mother\u2019s wedding ring which was promised to him. Salvo doesn\u2019t want to give it up until he meets his potential in-laws in their natural habitat. There\u2019s reluctance on both parts, but Dad agrees to accompany his son and possible fiancee on their holiday getaway. Let the non-hilarity begin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0From here on in, About My Father<\/strong> is a so-so variation on Meet the Parents with De Niro playing the outsider this time. Salvo doesn\u2019t get these people or their values. He doesn\u2019t understand why his son wants to marry into a family like this. He continually reminds Sebastian that he doesn\u2019t fit in and would be better off marrying a nice Italian girl. Most of the time, he just reacts with that stone-faced look of disapproval that\u2019s become a De Niro trademark. He can\u2019t believe what he\u2019s witnessing and if it was up to him, he\u2019d be on the first plane back to Chicago. It goes without saying that De Niro is the best thing- nay, the only good thing- about this movie. He struggles to keep it afloat, but it\u2019s a losing battle.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ve been racking my brain trying to think of the last really hilarious comedy movie and all I can come up with is Borat from 2006. That was 17 years ago. Nothing really stands out between then and now. About My Father<\/strong> continues this unfortunate trend. To its credit, it doesn\u2019t wallow in gross humor like the wretched Vacation reboot. I still get queasy thinking about it. That\u2019s not to say it doesn\u2019t go to some slightly distasteful places- e.g. the pet peacock in the pasta. I hate jokes about harm befalling animals, but I\u2019ll take it over people swimming in raw sewage any day.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ANYWAY, this is part of a much bigger problem. None of the jokes in About My Father<\/strong> really pack a punch. It\u2019s neither clever nor witty; it doesn\u2019t hold a candle to the class-anxiety comedies of the 40s with their witty banter and clever observations. It never rises above the level of a sitcom built around a popular comedian. Did I say \u201cpopular\u201d? I\u2019ll be honest, I never noticed Sebastian Maniscalco until I saw the trailer for this movie. I\u2019ve never seen his act, but I\u2019m told it\u2019s funny. It doesn\u2019t translate all that well to feature film. As for his performance, he\u2019s like the Italian version of Ben Stiller. He\u2019s the guy that tries too hard and usually ends up being humiliated for his efforts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The characters, Ellie\u2019s family in particular, are more like caricatures. They\u2019re the benevolent version of the family in Get Out. They\u2019re not overtly snobby, but they have an unmistakable air of superiority. This is Maniscalco and director\/co-writer Laura Terruso (Good Girls Get High) cushioning the blow for the sake of innocuousness. That\u2019s fine if he was looking to make a light comedy. On the downside, it takes away a lot of the bite that could have resulted from a more pointed comedy about class differences. In the end, About My Father<\/strong> is too light for its own good. It actually dissipates while it\u2019s going on. It\u2019s not a bad movie; it\u2019s just a very forgettable one. You\u2019re better off waiting for it to show up on a streaming platform.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About My Father (2023)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lionsgate\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (suggestive material, language, partial nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Laura Terruso\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Sebastian Maniscalco and Laura Terruso\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Stephanie Economou\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Rogier Stoffers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: May 26, 2023 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sebastian Maniscalco, Robert De Niro, Leslie Bibb, Anders Holm, David Rasche, Kim Cattrall, Brett Dier. Rating: ** \u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/About-My-Father-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3730"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4418,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3730\/revisions\/4418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}