When a comedy is working on all levels, it’s not only diverting, it’s as relevant and intelligent as any serious film around. That’s the big surprise of “Fun With Dick and Jane.” The movie starts off silly, soon becomes funny and then skyrockets into irrepressible hilarity. And at the same time, it smuggles some clever and relevant ideas into the theater. The film is set in the quaint, bygone days of 2000, when our culture, and this story’s comic heroes, were both endearingly naïve and exceedingly ambitious. Dick and Jane Harper are living well in their upscale Southern California housing development, and deserve everything they’ve attained.

They both work hard, he as a public relations executive for Globodyne, a huge computer company, she as a travel agent dealing with impossible clients all day long. They’re acquisitive, sure, enjoying the plasma TV, the BMW, the nice clothes and their little boy’s Mexican nanny, Blanca. But they’re not ostentatious or smug or workaholic. When Dick gets a big promotion, Jane leaves her job to spend more quality time with junior. You look at their success and think, “Couldn’t happen to a nicer couple.”

When Globodyne collapses overnight in a Worldcom-like scandal, the Harpers take a crash course in downward mobility. Dick’s job is gone, their stock is worthless, and their savings evaporate as Dick discovers that unemployed midlevel executives are a dime a dozen. (The top Globodyne execs, in contrast, literally made out like bandits.) The bills keep coming, however — gardeners roll up the couple’s lawn when they can’t pay — and in desperation Dick grabs his son’s water pistol and launches a life of crime with Jane as his getaway driver.

…
Fun With Dick And Jane

[rate 3.5]
Read the review here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 22nd, 2005 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.