THE QUEST FOR THE MOST ’90s FILM OF ALL TIME
Mrs. Doubtfire

Mrs. Doubtfire, our second Chris Columbus-directed film in The Quest, was one of the biggest hits of 1993—Golden Globe for Best Picture, anyone? It was easy to sell to people because the plot was basically “Robin Williams is an old female nanny.” The whole thing appears to be an extended Williams improvisation, so the film sometimes feels strangely untethered and wandering structurally. Luckily, that calls for a lot of montages. Everybody wins.

STARS/PERFORMANCES
- Actors Who Are Unquestionably Tied to the Decade- Robin Williams [+10]
Robin Williams is still acting of course, but his best days (and the days most representative of his manic, serendipitous style) are behind him. During the ’90s, he was attracted to either high-concept children’s fare (Aladdin; Flubber; Jumanji, which was awesome) or adult-themed films that actually required him to memorize a script (Being Human; The Fisher King; The Birdcage; Deconstructing Harry, which was awesome). Nowhere was this more evident than the end of the decade, when he followed up the best performance of his career in Good Will Hunting with his drippy, pandering, insulting portrayal of Patch Adams. In spirit, his tortured/torturous performance as Daniel Hillard/Euphegenia Doubtfire is pretty close to that latter class of film.

His co-star is Sally Field, who is not tied to the ’90s but brings up an interesting point. In 1993, she was forty-seven years old and cast as a romantic lead in a studio film. In fact, she was older than Williams. This would never happen today. The woman playing his wife would be in her thirties, or even younger than that if the studio could justify that she had teenaged kids. It’s sad but true.

- Other Notable Actors/Characters- Pierce Brosnan [+5], Harvey Fierstein [+5]
For my money, there is no actor better at not realizing that he’s funny than Pierce Brosnan. Guess how he plays his character Stu (!)? If you guessed that he plays it with aloofness and exaggerated urbanity, you get a medium-dry vodka martini—aloof and exaggeratedly urbane, not stirred.

When I was ten, I didn’t know what gay was. Then I saw Harvey Fierstein in Mrs. Doubtfire. (Or I just saw Mrs. Doubtfire period?) Fierstein plays Daniel’s brother, the makeup artist who creates the convincing Doubtfire get-up that gets Daniel back into his own house and taking care of his kids.


For the first time in his life, Robin Williams was the third fiercest person in the room.

Finally, even though this is a movie that gainfully employed Matthew Lawrence and Martin Mull, I have to toss some points to That Guy Anne Haney [+5] as the meddling social worker who has to check in on Daniel. More on her later.

TECHNOLOGY/CULTURAL RELICS
- Could the Plot Reasonably Occur with Current Technology?
It’s pretty silly as it is, but I guess. Makeup has advanced a lot in the past seventeen years. [-10]

- Hacking/Computers
None, although I’m looking forward to the remake, in which Doubtfire will make fake Facebook profiles and outsmart his ex-wife’s online background checks.

- Other Technological Notes
We get a flip-phone [+1], a black-and-white computer monitor [+1], and an address book [+1], but perhaps the most dated element is the fact that Field’s character has to physically file a personal ad for a  nanny with the newspaper [+3]. What a pain in the ass that must have been. It’s worth mentioning that this movie could not possibly exist if any of the characters had caller ID.

As you might remember, Sally Field’s Miranda needs a nanny, and Daniel offers to do the job just to get more quality time with his kids. But the screenplay requires Miranda to be an unreasonable shrew, so she says no and files a personal ad. Daniel sees the personal ad and slyly changes the phone number so that she won’t get any calls from potential nannies. Instead, using his Robin Williams superpowers, he floods her phone with creepy calls from funny-voiced prospective employees. Finally, he charms her over the phone with his Doubtfire voice, and he shows up at the house with an impossibly constrictive and demanding false identity to uphold.

Here are ways that could have been avoided: 1) Wait for no real people to call her, then accept the job when she begs you out of desperation. 2) Flood her phone with creepy calls, then wait for no real people to call, then accept the job when she begs you out of desperation. 3) Show up once as Mrs. Doubtfire, do a bad job as nanny, and get fired. Accept the job when she begs you out of desperation. Then, of course, we wouldn’t get an hour of Sally Field going, “You look so familiar…I feel like I’ve known you for years…” [+1]


Bitch, have you ever looked into your husband’s eyes? Have you ever noticed his height and/or mannerisms?

- References
How about a House of Pain song [+1]? How about a “getting-used-to-being-a-woman” montage to “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” [+1] which is about as predictable as…I don’t know anything that predictable. I sat here for ten minutes trying to come up with a joke*, and I couldn’t. In fact, can we talk about the montages for a second? I counted five separate ones [+10], including a “getting-nanny-stuff-done montage,” a “having-fun-with-the-kids montage”—scored to “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” natch [+1]—and the ever-cliched “trying on female disguises to bamboozle your own family into hanging out with you” montage.  (With different music, this movie would be unbearably sad.)


Who bungled the rights to B.T.O.’s “Taking Care of Business”? I was so disappointed.

FASHION
Daniel’s son wears hilariously baggy clothes (one of his shirts looks like a monk’s habit) [+1] and his daughter is fond of vests [+1]. He personally likes flannel [+1]. Here’s a question for you though: Mrs. Doubtfire always looks impeccable. Where does Robin Williams get all of these cardigans and brooches and slips? If we’re to believe that those are thrift-store finds, it’s no wonder his character doesn’t have a real job. I think watching Robin Williams dumpster-dive behind an old folks’ home might be a better movie than this.

’90s FILM CONVENTIONS
Robin Williams Talking and Acting “Like a Black Person” [+1]
Transsexual Panic [+1]
Exaggerated Portrayal of Gay Men [+1]


Try not to laugh at this picture. I’ll wait.

Petulant Children of Divorce [+3]
The Line “You’re My Goddamn Kids Too” [+3]
Having a Little Girl Inappropriately Repeat That Line for Comedic Effect [+3]

Unrealistic Development of Romantic Relationship for the Plot’s Benefit [+3]
Sally Field has only been separated from her husband for a week or two, and she’s already going out with Pierce Brosnan? And he’s walking around the house like he owns the place? And he’s probably the most normal character in the film?

Ridiculous Farce [+5]
This movie has not one, but two, scenes in which Daniel has to run in and out of rooms as, alternately, Doubtfire and himself. It’s exhausting. In the first, the meddling social worker gives him a surprise visit [+1], and he does the whole “I’ll be right there!” routine. She waits patiently in the living room as he pretends to get out of the shower, and…I don’t even feel like typing it. Fuck it.

Imagine this climax though. As Daniel, you have an important business meeting with a guy who could give you your own TV show? And as Doubtfire, you have an important family dinner at the same restaurant? Definitely don’t reschedule. Once again, you can totally pull off the “excuse me for one second” routine, in which you change in the bathroom and sit at each table for a minute. And everything seems fine until you start to accidentally leave your lipstick on or use the wrong voice. This also somehow involves pouring cayenne pepper all over Pierce Brosnan’s food [+1], and he starts choking and whatnot. It’s hilarious. By the end of the scene, Daniel has to come clean.

The movie wraps up in five minutes after that. Williams delivers a heartfelt but unsuccessful closing statement in court about his kids being “like the air that he breathes” [+1], and Miranda feels sorry for him. She lets him be the nanny for real for reals, and she explains away the court-ordered separation and monitoring with “I took care of it” [+1]. Okay! Dude looks like a lay-day!

62 points. I will never watch this film again.

*- A scene of someone shrinking a red Corvette to the tune of “Little Red Corvette”? A scene of people playing rock music in a jail to the tune of “Jailhouse Rock”?