Funny Farm

This movie is funny. I don't know why it has such low ratings. I like the sarcasm involved in having a married couple from the city moving out to a farm. This is a movie that I recommend to anyone who wishes to have a few laughs watching Chevy Chase and his superb timing for acting in comedies such as this one.

I recently rewatched this having seen it many, many years ago and remembering nothing of it. I stumbled upon some old Siskel and Ebert reviews on YouTube, and they had very mixed opinions about Chevy Chase and his movies. They thought he was a fairly one note actor playing a smart aleck type but did occasionally get some good scripts. However their praise for this film was extremely enthusiastic saying it was Chase's best work. Chase has had a career that has been very hit and miss. His best movie work was in the 70's and 80's and during the 90's he made some very bad career choices like his failed short-lived talk show, and picking bad scripts. But knowing Siskel and Ebert's love for this film and considering it was in the decade of Chase's better work, I had to give it another try, and boy am I ever happy I did. This movie was pure joy all throughout. Every gag worked, the acting was good, Chase had a chance to show lots more range here than in some of his previous (and certainly subsequent) films and no I dont agree with other reviews that say he was just playing Clark Griswold again here. His performance in this is fine comic acting. Madolyn Smith also gave a great performance as his wife. If the movie didn't have a great joke or visual gag, it was gorgeous to look at. The scenery and camerawork are simply dazzling and beautifully done for a comedy. George Roy Hill who directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting directed this and does great with the material that writer Jeffrey Boam adapted from a book. This film was sadly overlooked because of strong competition in the summer of 88 when it came out. It came out on the same exact day as the Tom Hanks classic Big and suffered from competition with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Crocodile Dundee II, The Great Outdoors, and Die Hard among others. While it may not be a "classic" like the aforementioned films, it is noteworthy as just delightful comedic filmmaking from beginning to end and the last truly great film Chevy Chase made. In the 90's he made Man of the House and Vegas Vacation and they were the only two films he did that decade that were decent and not failures. But this ranks high along with Chevy's best 80's movies like Caddyshack, the Vacations Fletch and Three Amigos! Anyone who says Chevy Chase was never funny is mistaken. This film is proof that he is a very funny, talented comic actor with the right script. He found a diamond before the rough came. This is a good, fun comedy his best after the first Vacation. If you need proof that Chevy Chase at one point was a great comic actor you must see this movie. He really shines in this one.

While watching this movie, I realized that on several levels we live in a small town not much different from the Vermont one depicted. Our tourist town is located on a Channel Island in the Pacific, but the characters couldn't be more identical to those Chevy and wife deals with in the rural town they move to for serenity and quiet. Everyone tests their resolve to live in that community, and in failing to measure up to their standards, they are treated as outsiders. Once they understand the neighborhood peculiarities, everyone becomes acquainted, then accustomed to one another. While finding a common bond and learning to fit in, there is one silly misadventure after another. There are a lot of laughs in this movie that allow a person to stand back and realize that this is how small communities conduct themselves everywhere, and is a study in human behavior. Chevy's characters rarely make anything easy, which combined with a seemingly conservative personality has become his calling card.

This film has some pretty negative and ho-hum comments. I won't say it's his best, but this is still a great film for fans of Chevy Chase. There are a number of good laughs, even if the comedy isn't nonstop like today's ADHD movie-goers demand. Every so often, someone in my family will say "Cue the deer," and we still have a good chuckle every time. Just one of the all-time classic lines in a classic comedy sequence that is really the lasting mark of this film. The telephone operator scene, and all the dog scenes are just great for laughs, too. Really, this film falls into that "Saturday afternoon on USA" sort of category, like PCU and Used Cars. You wouldn't go rent it perhaps, but if it came on TV some afternoon, it's always worth a watch.

Now, admittedly, I saw this during a period of my life when I believed Chevy Chase could do no wrong but even so, this is one that holds up, and was unfairly lambasted by the critics. From the ads (if you can even remember that far back!) this looked like it was just going to be a "Vacation" rip-off, sort of "The Griswolds Move To the Country." Believe me, the humor in this film is much slyer and more charming than anything in the Vacation pictures (of which the first one was solid, the next two lame). The film is about a sportswriter (Chase) who quits his job in order to move out to the country with his wife (the wonderful Madolyn Smith) and write the Great American Novel. The movie details his gradual come uppance, as he realizes that neither country living nor his talent is all that it's cracked up to be.

The film wonderfully skews the convention of the innocent country rubes moving to the big city and being overwhelmed by its meanness and craziness. Here, it's the cityfolk who move wide-eyed to the country - and are amazed to find there a roll call of crazies, misanthropes, and just plain wierdos. Does this view of country life have any basis in reality? Probably not, but then the film isn't really trying to be a satire but instead a pure lunatic comic fantasy. And it gives us a rich array of supporting characters - from the town sheriff who hasn't yet passed his driving test and so must ride around in cabs, to the owner of an antiques store whose merchandise are all personal. All these characters are priceless, and the film just keeps coming up with more and more of them - until it has created this pleasantly bizarre and warped Otherworld, of a kind that only comedy can truly provide.

Best of all is the way in which Chase and Smith react to all of this and try to make some sense of it. I very clearly say "Chase and Smith" because the film belongs equally to both of them. It had to be billed as a Chevy Chase Comedy, of course, since he's the big star here, but this is no star trip; from the very first, the wife is made an equal partner in the trials and the laughs, and it's the way the two go through their new life together that provides much of the comedy. It also helps take the edge off of the usual Chevy Chase persona: in Funny Farm he's neither glib and disinterested (as in the Fletch movies) nor over the top silly (like in the Vacation movies). He comes across instead like a normal, personable guy who just finds himself caught in insane circumstances.

Finally, the climactic sequence of the film is absolutely priceless - one of the most brilliantly sustained comic set-pieces you'll see in any movie, of any era. Funny Farm is the type of movie which gives you a great time and leaves you with a big, dopey grin on your face after it's all over. Trust me, even if you don't normally like Chevy Chase, you'll love Funny Farm.