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Parents

1989, Movie, R, 82 mins

Parents: Review

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In his directorial debut actor Bob Balaban uses a fantastic plot metaphorically to study a repressed young boy's exposure to his parent's sexuality. Having settled into their home in the suburbs during the late 1950s, Nick and Lily Laemle (Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt) offer young son Michael (Bryan Madorsky) a continual display of their ravenous sexual appetites, but pay little attention to him, except to wonder why he won't eat his meat. In time, Michael comes to suspect that his folks are making their meals out of corpses Nick brings home from the workplace. When Michael tells the school psychologist (Sandy Dennis) about his homelife, she determines to show him the reality behind his "hallucinations," but ends up as steak herself, as the film becomes increasingly bizarre. PARENTS concentrates heavily on Michael's Freudian pathology; however, in its emphasis on psychological themes, the film loses sight of its story and becomes a confused collection of isolated vignettes. In adopting the boy's single-minded perspective, it prevents its characters from developing, so that Quaid hovers and glowers, Hurt giggles and flirts, and Madorsky lurks in dark recesses without variation from beginning to end. Nevertheless, Balaban clearly demonstrates a talent for visuals; his swooping, gliding camera movements indicate a sure and promising directorial hand. leave a comment
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