Mr. Mom

Mr. Mom Information

Mr. Mom is a 1983 American comedy-drama film directed by Stan Dragoti and written by John Hughes about a stay-at-home dad. The film stars Michael Keaton, Teri Garr, Jeffrey Tambor, Christopher Lloyd, and Martin Mull.

Plot

Living with his wife Caroline and their three children: Alex, Kenny and Megan in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan during the recession, Jack and his two friends, Larry and Stan, lose their engineering jobs at the Ford Motor Company before an ad agency hires Caroline for work.

Jack discovers he is clueless about how to manage a household. He falls into depression as his ego and the household fall apart and begins socializing a lot with the housewives in his neighborhood. Caroline struggles with being back in the workforce and successfully pitches an innovative idea to a hard-to-please client. The president of the company is pleased and wants her to fly to Los Angeles to help shoot the commercial. In the meantime, Jack has snapped out of his depression. His former employer invites him back for a chance to interview again for his old job, but he finds that his former boss, Jinx Latham, betrayed his reputation. He lectures them on such dirty practices and storms out. The neighborhood housewives surprise him unpleasantly with a visit to a strip club (with male strippers) to take his mind off of things. Jack and Caroline find themselves fending off the lascivious advances of others. Her boss, Ron Richardson, tries to convince her to leave Jack and marry him instead, while in his case, one of their mutual friends, Joan, tries to seduce him in a less direct manner. Caroline leaves her family on Halloween to go on a business trip. After a successful commercial shoot in Los Angeles, she relaxes in her hotel bathtub. Ron takes this opportunity to sneak into her room with champagne. Back home, Jack tries calling her at this exact moment so the kids could talk to her, but Ron picks up the phone instead. He hangs up, therefore Jack is thinking she is having an affair with him. She, not knowing what has just transpired via the phone, confronts him and fends off his attempts to seduce her and ends up punching him in the nose and quitting her job.

The next day dawns with a couple of household repair people in the home to fix a broken television and spray for bugs. Joan stops by and while Jack is upstairs in the bathroom she makes herself at home in their bedroom. Realizing that she wants to sleep with him, Jack begins running through a list of reasons why he should not have an affair with her. Caroline arrives home unexpectedly, surprising Joan on the bed, and after a confrontation, she leaves. Caroline takes her place on the bed. Jack, not realizing she is home, comes back to the bedroom. They talk over the misunderstandings that occurred concerning Ron and Joan's advances and reunite as a stronger couple. Ron stops by the house, begging her to come back to his company, as the client has demanded that only she can properly handle his account. However, she expresses how much she missed spending time with her children. Jinx also comes begging for Jack to return to work. He had made too many cuts in his design team and is now in danger of losing his job. Alex says something to his father while Jinx is talking and he yells at him, at which point Jack makes good on his earlier promise and punches him in the face. Jack accepts his old job back with the demand being accepted that Larry and Stan will have theirs back. As Jack and Caroline are sitting on the steps inside the home with the kids, with Jinx and Ron in the background talking with the TV repairwoman and exterminator, they are again a happy family. On the newly repaired TV, the viewer sees the commercial Caroline helped produce.

Cast

Michael Keaton as Jack Butler
Teri Garr as Caroline Butler
Jeffrey Tambor as Jinx Latham
Christopher Lloyd as Larry
Martin Mull as Ron Richardson
Taliesin Jaffe as Kenny Butler
Frederick Koehler as Alex Butler
Courtney and Brittany White as Megan Butler
Graham Jarvis as Humphries
Miriam Flynn as Annette
Ann Jillian as Joan
Edie McClurg as Checkout lady
Patti Deutsch as Deli girl
Tom Leopold as Stan
Carolyn Seymour as Eve
Michael Alaimo as Bert
Valri Bromfield as Doris

Production

While working at Motown Productions, story editor and struggling producer Lauren Shuler read an article on National Lampoon written by John Hughes, and decided to keep in touch with him. One day Hughes told Shuler about a disastrous experience he had looking after his two children in the absence of his wife, which Shuler found hilarious. After asking if that could make a good movie, she replied that "it sure sounds funny to me". Hughes wrote Mr. Mom, and flew to Los Angeles to rewrite the script with Shuler. As Hughes had a TV deal with Aaron Spelling, he brought him in as an executive producer. Then the studio executives at Universal Studios were upset that Hughes was working in Chicago instead of Los Angeles, fired him and brought a group of TV writers to remake his script. Then the studio decided to turn it into a feature film instead of a television movie. Shuler, who remained as a producer, declared that while she liked the final product she thought Hughes' original script was better.While Shuler talked to her agent friend Laurie Perlman, Perlman told about "this guy who is really funny" who she represented, Michael Keaton. After meeting Keaton and seeing his screen debut, Night Shift (1982), Shuler decided to send the actor the script of Mr. Mom.

Reception

Critical reception

The film received mixed to positive reviews upon its 1983 release. Leonard Maltin gave it 2.5 stars out of 4, stating "pleasant enough rehash of age-old sitcom premise," adding "likable stars make it palatable, but you've seen it all before." Mr. Mom went on to receive generally positive reviews and is currently regarded by many to not only be one of the best films of 1983 but also one of the best films of the decade in general. The film has 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Box office

Mr. Mom opened to limited release on July 22, 1983 with $947,197, earning the #13 spot that weekend. Upon its wide release on August 19, 1983, a month later, the film opened #3 with $4,279,384 behind Easy Moneys opening weekend and Risky Business third. The film ended up with $64 million domestically, and its success lead Universal to sign a three-picture deal with Hughes for $30 million.