Stuart Saves His Family

I was channel-surfing one afternoon and "Stuart Saves His Family" was on HBO. Being a bit of a masochist, I thought I'd stay and see how embarrassingly bad it was going to be (as most SNL-character-inspired movies are) and was pleasantly surprised. Anyone who is or knows someone who is in any of the 12-step programs will appreciate this movie and show it to all your friends. It has a stellar cast and Al Franken is an underrated genius.

As far as SNL movies go it's definately above average, of course, that's comparing it to "It's Pat", "A Night at the Roxbury" and "Ladies Man"...

Still... this one hits more than it misses. If you have a dysfunctional family or can identify with any of Stuart's relatives, it's worth the hour and a half....

While it won't win any awards, it should be worth an hour and a half of your time... I give it 6/10 for the average person.... 8/10 if you have a highly diversified and dysfunctional family.

Whenever trying to memorialize the recently departed, I tend to seek out lesser known films by them, or at least films that I haven't seen. I'd always wanted to see this film, adapted from the Stuart Smalley sketches from Saturday Night Live. I remember Siskel & Ebert liking the film quite a bit back in the day, plus the star is now my Senator. And this is actually quite a good film. What's most surprising about it is it's actually quite serious for what it is. In fact, trying to get the serious subject to work while also trying to keep the same style of comedy the sketches had on SNL makes it a little tonally uneven, but I love what they were trying. Al Franken stars as Stuart Smalley, who hosts a cable access show called Daily Affirmations, where he reveals his many problems to his small audience and tries to work through them. As the film opens, his producer fires him. Soon after, his aunt dies so he goes back home to Minneapolis for the funeral. His family is hugely dysfunctional, with many drinking and weight problems. He tries to help. The film takes the problems entirely seriously. I mean, there is comedy, but the family dysfunction is never the butt of the joke. Al Franken is very good and the character is given more subtlety than he had on SNL. Vincent D'Onofrio plays his younger brother, Harris Yulin his father, Shirley Knight his mother and Lesley Boone his sister. Laura San Giacomo and Julia Sweeney also co-star as Stuart's friends. Not a great movie, but a nice one.

Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley (Al Franken) is a small public cable access show in Chicago. Julia (Laura San Giacomo) is one of his many sponsors. He is a follower of multiple 12 steps programs. After blowing up on his show, he gets kicked off of public access cable. Aunt Paula dies and Stuart has to go home to deal with his family. Donnie (Vincent D'Onofrio) is his irresponsible brother. Jodie (Lesley Boone) is his overwhelmed sister. Shirley Knight and Harris Yulin play their parents.

This needs a little bit of simplification. Stuart needs to go home and stay there until everything is solved. He should drag Julia along with him. I like Stuart. I really like Stuart. I'm not a superfan of Stuart in SNL but I watched it off and on. In this movie, he's actually an interesting character. It's not a silly little skit. I like him even more here. I like that he's actually helpful in this movie. Doggonit I like him.

That doesn't sound like an accomplishment, since the best SNL movies are probably "Blues Brothers" and "Wayne's World," and both are uneven. Furthermore, Stuart Smalley seems at first glance like one of the most obnoxious characters to base a movie around. He has characteristics that turn a lot of people off (effeminate, new agey, "caring"), but Franken shows that this veneer is painfully constructed over anger and hurt, and you end up actually liking him better the more time you spend with him. (The TV skits tend to just make fun of him.) One of the movie's most interesting scenes is between Franken and Laura San Giacomo when he tells her "I love you." In any other Hollywood movie, this would be a romantic-interest scene, because everyone knows you can't have a male and female star in a movie without their getting together. Well, here it's that incredibly rare thing: a scene of genuine friendship and support, with Stuart's sexuality left out of the question. To me, that's more impressive than if they got into a liplock.