A young boy suspects his parents of cannibalism.
Directed by: Bob Balaban
Starring: Bryan Madorsky, Randy Quaid, Mary Beth Hurt, Sandy Dennis, Juno Mills-Cockell
Drawing on David Lynch's Blue Velvet and 1950s paranoia
sci-fi thrillers like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and
(especially) Invaders from Mars, Bob Balaban's black comedy horror Parents peers into
the basements of '50s suburban America, and more specifically, into the
giant freezer units found within.
In his one and only screen role, Bryan Madorsky is
10-year-old Michael Laemle, a shy, gangly kid who has just moved to a
new suburb with his parents, Nick (Randy Quaid) and Lily (Mary Beth Hurt). Bryan enrols in a new school and is taken under the wing of precocious
pupil Sheila (Juno Mills-Cockell), as odd in her own extroverted ways
as Bryan is in his introverted self. Nick takes a job at Toxico, a chemical
plant developing the sort of weapons that will decimate South East Asia in
the following decade. And of course, Lily stays home and maintains the
family's new home, which resembles the set of
I Love Lucy, if that sitcom had been sponsored by IKEA.
Like any sensible kid, Bryan has a healthy mistrust of his parents, who
fill his dinner plate every evening with racks of succulent mystery meat.
Bryan shuns the food, wary of how his mother vaguely calls it "leftovers"
whenever he enquires as to its origin. One night Bryan leaves his bed and is
horrified to discover his parents engaged in what appears to be some sort of
sex act, their bodies smeared with blood. Bryan begins to suspect the meat
his parents attempt to ply him with may be of human origin.
Parents received poor reviews on its 1989 release but has
developed a cult following since. Had it been released a couple of years
later it may have fared better, given its aesthetic and thematic
similarities to
Twin Peaks, the show that had cult movie fans tuning into prime time network TV every
week to watch David Lynch and Mark Frost dig up the turf on the lawns of
suburban America in similar fashion. Bryan's dream sequences and the use of
staggered slow motion feel like they've been lifted directly from Lynch and
Frost's show, though of course both went into production concurrently.
Balaban even hires Lynch's regular composer Angelo Badalamenti to
score his film's more nightmarish moments, and at points you might find
yourself wondering when an owl is going to fly across the screen.
Visually, Parents is a striking debut for an actor turned
director. Balaban and cinematographers Ernest Day and
Robin Vidgeon pull off some camera tricks that are especially
impressive for a movie from the pre-CG age. At one point the camera pulls
back through the Laemle's basement and continues retreating backwards
through an air vent in a sort of reversal of the famous final shot of
Antonioni's The Passenger. A dinner table interrogation of Bryan by his parents sees Balaban mount
the table on a carousel, the room slowly spinning in the background making
the scene all the more unsettling. The garish production and costume design
adds to the general feeling of sugar rush nausea.
While Parents didn't deserve its original critical shunning,
I'm not sure it's entirely worthy of its subsequent cult status.
Christopher Hawthorne's script never quite mines the scenario for its
true satirical potential, and it takes too long for the film to put Bryan in
any real peril. The cast is excellent all round, from Quaid's boorish
portrayal of a conservative father who feels he has nothing in common with
his weird son, to Sandy Dennis's quirky school psychologist (though
her post-hippy character feels very at odds with the '50s setting). It's
young English actress Mills-Cockell who steals the show however, and the
scenes between the insular Bryan and the oddball Sheila provide Balaban's
film with its most charming moments. But you get the impression the cast is
working overtime to make up for a rather bland script, which ultimately
climaxes in a sub-standard post-Shining stalking sequence
before resolving with a final gag that suggests the slight story may have
worked best as an episode of a horror anthology show.
Parents is on Amazon Prime Video UK
now.
