Renoir Lite-Hearted

Grown Ups

Directed by Dennis Dugan

Runtime: 102 min.

It’s inspiring to see Adam Sandler bounce back from last year’s Judd
Apatow catastrophe Funny People with the cheerful and
surprisingly heartfelt Grown Ups. Instead of inflating a
self-congratulatory stand-up comic’s convention, Grown Ups offers a
reunion of 1970s junior high school basketball teammates (Sandler,
Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock) and shows how they
struggle to achieve maturity—even as adult males vacationing with wives
and children. It’s as if Sandler realized what was so false and
ineffective about Funny People: the coddling sarcasm, ethnic
self-pampering and egotism presented as an enviable part of L.A. comics’
privileged lifestyles.

This means that Sandler’s role as Hollywood producer Lenny Feder, who
convenes his old buddies on the occasion of their coach’s funeral,
renounces Apatow and recaps the personal and moral quandary of his rich
role in James L. Brooks’ remarkable but widely misunderstood Spanglish—the
finest recent American movie to explore class and ethnic mobility. Grown Ups
borrows a Mike Leigh title but doesn’t disgrace it. It’s not a high-concept film about good old boys’ arrested development; their women’s
reactions significantly put the boys’ egotism in perspective. It’s
altogether about the disappointments and self-deprecation that men who
are intimate with each other might be reluctant to share yet cannot
deny.

Grown Ups’ multi-ethnic premise presents men who find themselves
fixed in marriages with annoying in-laws (Rock), unruly children
(James), demanding spouses (Sandler, Schneider) and desires that remain
unsatisfied into middle-age (Spade). It recalls the rich humanism that
was Paul Mazursky’s specialty during the 1970s. Sandler now uses
contemporary sarcasm to mock the juvenile pretenses of these indulgent
males—a Mazursky-deep move whereas Apatow is just vulgar and
sentimental.

Sandler’s reckless comedy pokes fun at his clique’s immaturity. He
doesn’t pretend to create character studies; rather, he satirizes their
common silliness as they revisit adolescent pranks and attitudes. One
ploy of Sandler and Fred Wolf’s screenplay is to democratize
humor—spread affectionate derision all around—by repeating jokes that
grow into an appreciation of our full humanity. Note the wet T-shirt
ogling that goes from a nubile chick to a middle-aged hausfrau, or the
sustained swimsuit-wedgie routine (“That was a man’s ass?”). These jokes
prove that Sandler isn’t class-climbing or youth-pandering like Apatow
but affectionately examines the fundamental insecurities of middle-age.
His usual-suspects cast not only create characterizations, they almost
give performances. James, Spade and Schneider aren’t smart-alecks and
buffoons; they display chagrin and Chris Rock’s harried husband is more
believable than his role in I Think I Love My Wife.

It helps that the women are not played by comediennes but actresses with
emotional affect: Salma Hayek as Sandler’s fashionista spouse, Maria
Bello as James hyper-maternal mate; Maya Rudolph as Rock’s pregnant,
good-natured mama’s girl and Joyce Van Patten confirms that
martronliness can be charming. Director Dennis Dugan shows such actorly,
egalitarian rapport that Grown Ups surpasses the recent French
film The Father of My Children. Grown Ups has a natural, spontaneous sense of
how friends of shared sensibility grow apart yet stay instinctively
intact. The mocking personalities are never guileful; the insistence on
friendship resembles Leigh’s insight and Renoir’s grace but crossed with
stand-up comic candor. Sandler’s wardrobe of collegiate T-shirts
humorously reveals the missed opportunities Feder never confesses: Grown Ups
is nicely subtle about mid-life regret and lifelong promise.
Unassuming as it is, Grown Ups’ best moments suggest a humanist
work of art.