In dieci sotto un tetto

The plot premise is pretty standard fare - a couple get married in Vegas and then have to tell their kids what's happened. Where it goes sour is scripting and acting. The adult actors cannot even act drunk in the Vegas scene, nor is their hangover believable in the morning after. The lines they deliver are unbelievable and forced. Some of the kid actors are actually far better than the adults.

The plot turns are all predictable and are basically taken from the Handbook of Average Made-for-TV Movies. It is a movie that makes you sit it through, frowning at the badness of the script, but holding promise of it getting better. But it never does.

While nobody will ever confuse this movie with Citizen Kane, it is not a total waste of two hours. This is a typical "his kids vs. her kids" movie, except unlike the Brady Bunch, it tries to deal with some modern issues facing blended families, like when the father's second-oldest son and the mother's oldest daughter are discovered kissing on the patio. At least, being on the ABC Family Channel, this situation is not handled as crudely as it might have been on a different channel. The closest this movie comes to being risqué is at the beginning of the movie, when the mom wakes up to find her youngest daughter sleeping on the pillow next to her and asks "Where did you come from?" "Your uterus," replies the tot.

I usually comment only on movies that I like, figuring "everyone to his/her own taste," but here I want to make an exception. The premise of this movie, which somehow seems to get lost in the shuffle, is that these two self-centered adults have a perfect right to go off to Las Vegas, get drunk, get married, and inflict incalculable suffering upon their respective broods of children. Even allowing for the culturally sanctioned inebriation, they have neither the courage nor the sense of responsibility to wake up the next morning and undo what they have set in motion. After all, "love" is all that's important, isn't it? To hell with everybody else. Whether or not things "work out in the end" is really not the point; in fact it's quite irrelevant. The point is that disrespect for others, especially if they are young persons, and especially if they are in a position of dependency, is made light of and thereby reinforced by this movie. There are far more innocuous behaviors these "parents" could have performed that would have brought down an army of social workers on their heads in a heartbeat.

How nice to have a movie the entire family can watch together. Josie Bissett and Rob Estes (who are married in real life) play a couple who marry in Las Vegas on a whim and then not only have to break the news to their kids but then have to try to meld their respective households (each has two boys and two girls)into a cohesive family unit. What transpires when the group, which includes four teenagers, two preteens and two younger children, makes one wonder at first if there can ever be true happiness for Carrie and Jim. The fights between the kids (and one little love affair between two of them) make one wonder if everyone will ever be able to get along. More interesting than the Brady Bunch, what this is a totally enjoyable way to spend a couple hours. Recommended as a feel good movie for all ages.

I thought the movie "I Do They Don't" was fantastic. In the past I've watched Rob Estes on "Suddenly Susan" & "Melrose Place" and also Josie Bissett on "Melrose Place" and loved seeing them together again in "I Do They Don't". They have great chemistry together (I guess being married in real life helps that!) - in the movie they are both widowed with children and careers and they fall in love and try blend their already busy chaotic families together without dropping the ball. Of course they stumble, but they keep it together which is what working and raising a family is all about. So many people have been talking about this movie - all good! - and the movie left us wanting more. This would make a great series - appealing to many ages! - it would be so nice to see a real life, down to earth, family show like this that portrays the reality of so many of our lives today - instead of the so called "Reality TV" that all the stations are overwhelming us with these days. Someone tell the people at ABC Family they have the start of a new series here!