Parents

This movie really has me thinking about what elements I value when assigning the star rating being my enjoyment of it. Does the ambition count? Does it only count if it's realized? What about novelty? Memorability? I'm really stuck on this one, because Parents is ... well, it's a lot. A Lot. In brief, Parents is about Michael, a young boy who suspects something is weird about his parents. The movie follows him trying to work it out as he also adjusts to moving to a new neighborhood. Wikipedia calls it a black comedy horror movie, which, yeah, sure, I guess? It's more concise and simple for the average person than "where John Waters, Joe Dante, and David Lynch overlap", but even that's not entirely accurate. Nothing is accurate, because Parents is just weird. Parents' tone is so all over the place, it makes lobster chocolate pancakes sound rational. I really don't know how to describe it beyond that unholy Venn diagram I described earlier. The 50's atmosphere feels a lot like Serial Mom-era Waters, but the social satire and dark comedy feel a little more Joe Dante, but nobody talks like you'd expect, and there's weird dream-like moments, just like a Lynch movie. Parents does not exist in our world; it occurs in a hyper-reality, similar to the aforementioned sources, but also wholly distinct. The direction and acting fully commit to maintaining this atmosphere at all times, and I respect it for that. Every performance is memorable in its own way, from Randy Quaid's cheerfully menacing Nick to Mary Beth Hurt's June Cleaver-meets-Squeaky Fromme Lily, and especially the weird, deadpan Michael, who reacts to almost nothing whatsoever in the most off-putting way imaginable. Parents is the kind of movie that have you doing the confused dog head tilt almost the entire time. But that weirdness comes at a cost, and that is the 38-car pile-up of tones means none of them ever really take hold. Satire should be biting and this barely qualifies as a nibble, except when it's so on the nose it's the entire face (Nick works at a conglomerate called Toxico ... was Evilco not obvious enough?). Nothing in the movie ever rises to even be chuckle-worth. The horror doesn't really kick in until the last 15 minutes or so, and by then, it's too late. Not to mention that it doesn't even want to commit to it, as the score is a little too wacky to give the climax any gravity. And the big secret that the movie has been building up to is as obvious as a white whale on a black background, especially as the movie drops hints with the subtlety of a town crier screaming at the top of their lungs. Hell, you should be able to guess what it is by looking at the movie poster. But I just couldn't stop watching Parents. It doesn't pull off half the tricks it wants to, but I admire that it went for them just the same. It's the kind of movie I could see having a cult following for how relentlessly weird it is. Though it wears its inspirations on every stitch of clothing, it synthesizes them into something else. It may not get it right, but it gets it acceptably wrong.