By Jennifer Deaton
Though we GenXers might look back on our favorite ’80s films with some chagrin, “Parenthood” (1989) holds up. Steve Martin is the lead dad whose dream is to have strong, happy confident kids. His adult siblings and their respective offspring offer a continuum of parenting styles and challenging personalities. (The amazing ensemble cast includes a 15-year-old Joaquin Phoenix, known then as Leaf.)
When the film first came out, my family often quoted it to crack each other up. I loved it as a daughter and sister. But now — holy crap — 30 years later, I am the mother of a six-year-old boy. And parenthood? Oy! The movie hits me more powerfully now than when I was a kid.
Long before Keanu Reeves made his serious mark as Neo or John Wick, he was “That Tod,” the goofy boyfriend of Martha Plimpton. That Tod declares, “… you need a license to buy a dog. You need a license to drive a car – hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But any *^&@* can be a father.” And it’s true; every parent starts out a rookie. But parenting is uniquely challenging in that once you’ve mastered parenting, your child grows into a new phase, and you’re a rookie all over again!
As kids, my older brother and I were the kind of siblings — like characters Kevin and his little sister Taylor — who enjoyed getting into mischief together. We would giggle at their silly song, “When you’re sliding into first and your pants begin to burst, diarrhea, diarrhea.” We loved playacting nauseous Taylor’s infamous moment when asked if she feels like she’s going to throw up. Her answer is simply “Okay,” before projectile vomiting on her dad Gil.
Now the tables have turned, and I find myself enduring, with something like Steve Martin’s vexation, my otherwise articulate son’s singing of “poopoo doodoo dumdum,” his eyes lighting up with mischievous delight. I am sometimes the nurturing Mary Steenburgen happily realizing that I like being a parent and that I am even good at it. I am sometimes the annoying Rick Moranis, trying to make every moment educational, to make the most of my kid’s neuroplastic potential. I wish I were as funny as Dianne Wiest when I’m at the end of my rope.
But more often than not, I am Steve Martin’s Gil Buchman: I’ll dig through disgusting trash to find that precious lost item. I’ll fret through the parent-teacher conference over where I went wrong. I’ll get so into the kids’ activity that I’m still whacking away at the impenetrable piñata long after the kids have lost interest and moved on. I’ll risk life and limb and look like a fool in order to put a smile on my son’s face to make up for a Cowboy Dan no-show. I’ll encourage and I’ll cheer and I’ll comfort, trying to let my son know he’s perfect and accepted and beautiful just as he is.
In that moment when Kevin wins the baseball game, despite everyone’s expectations to the contrary, Steve Martin’s ecstatic victory dance is the most eloquent moment of uninhibited silliness on celluloid. It’s the visual representation of how it feels when your kid gets a much-needed win.
In their third-act conversation, Mary Steenburgen says to Steve Martin, “What do you want me to give you? Guarantees? These are kids, not appliances!” Jaded viewers might judge the climax as cheesy when the sound design and cinematography render the school-play fiasco with the vertigo and noises of a roller coaster, echoing Grandma’s monologue about how she prefers the ups and downs of a roller coaster to the predictability of a merry-go-round. But Martin and Steenburgen’s faces remind us we have the choice to enjoy the ride or suffer through it.
The film holds up for me because I can access the film from the different stages of my own life: Once the goofy child, now the earnest parent, just doing the best that I can to raise a happy, strong and confident kid.
Jennifer Deaton is a Story Analyst for Focus Features. She is also a writer; her movie “Jack of the Red Hearts” took its inspiration from her brother’s family, who meets their daughter’s severe autism with courage and comedy. Jennifer can be reached at j.deaton@ rocketmail.com.
