There are a lot of little smiles in "The Addams Family," and many chuckles and
grins, but they don't add up to much. The movie is like a series of the Charles
Addams cartoons that inspired it, in which each individual line or image is
self-contained. I was mildly entertained, but I was hoping for big laughs and
with one exception I didn't find them.
The movie, based on characters created by Addams in his immortal New
Yorker cartoons, and on the early 1960s TV series, looks uncannily like the
original Addams drawings; the art direction must have been a rip-and-paste
job. The ghoulish family lives in a many-turreted gothic mansion, next to its
own graveyard, on a blasted heath where nothing grows except for dead
things. Inside the house, all the ordinary rules of human nature are reversed, as
when the mother finds her daughter going after a little brother with a kitchen
knife, and sternly takes it away from her in order to hand over an ax.
Mother, named Morticia, is played by Anjelica Huston, who in makeup is a
dead ringer for the original character. Her husband, Gomez, is played by Raul
Julia, and despite the weirdness of their characters I did somehow feel
chemistry between them. They're having fun. Many of the better moments
involve the two Addams children, Wednesday (Christina Ricci) and Pugsley
(Jimmy Workman), who before they go off to school are handed their lunches
in brown bags with something alive inside.
Wednesday and Pugsley are responsible for the one big laugh in the movie, at
a school pageant that ends with half of the audience drenched in stage blood.
At least I hope it's stage blood. The plot otherwise involves a scheme by the
calculating family attorney (Dan Hedaya), who convinces the son of a client to
impersonate Gomez' long-lost older brother, Fester. The brother (Christopher
Lloyd, from the "Back to the Future" movies) stares out in dismay at the world
through large black eye sockets, and is a miserable wretch until he begins to
feel he actually belongs in the Addams household.
There are the beginnings of a lot of inspirations in the film, but somehow
they're not pushed through to true comic invention. Take Thing, for example,
the intelligent, disembodied hand that is a family pet. When the family is evicted
from its home and forced to take real jobs, Thing gets a job delivering Federal
Express parcels - but the movie throws away the funny possibilities here by
merely showing Thing in fast motion, racing on its rounds. Wasn't there
anything actually funny they could dream up, involving the problems that a
disembodied hand would have on the job?
I was not one of the great admirers of "Beetlejuice," the 1988 comedy by Tim
Burton, but, seeing this movie, I realize how much more creatively Burton used
his special effects. Both movies are about strange evil creatures inhabiting a
tricky haunted house, and yet in "The Addams Family" the effects seem put in
for their own sake, to be looked at, and are not really exploited in the story.
That leaves the individual moments. Yes, a lot of them are funny. In the months
before this movie opened, there were a lot of brief trailers for it in the theaters.
You've probably seen some of them - like the one where the kids ask if the
Girl Scout cookies are made from real Girl Scouts. By themselves, these lines
are funny, as were the cartoon captions that inspired some of them. But they
don't build. They get a laugh, and then the movie has to build up to the next
one. This is the kind of film that isn't as much fun to see as it is to hear about. Reviewed By Rita Kempley of the Washington Post
"The Addams Family" is more laughs than a casketful of whoopee cushions at a morticians'
convention. More than merely a sequel of the TV series, the film is a compendium of
paterfamilias Charles Addams's macabre drawings, a resurrection of the cartoonist's body
of work. For family friends, it would seem a viewing is de rigueur mortis.
Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia are ideally cast as the glamour ghoul Morticia "Tish"
Addams and her doting husband, Gomez. Together they head a mouldering ancestral
manse, which is frequently dusted to no avail by the towering butler, Lurch (Carel
Struycken). Other residents are a disembodied hand, Thing (Christopher Hart); Morticia's
mother, Granny (Judith Malina); and the Addams children, Pugsley (Jimmy Workman) and
Wednesday (Christina Ricci).
A precursor of such TV broods as the Bunkers and the Bundys, the Addamses remain a
deliciously dysfunctional bunch. Contrarians to the gristle, they delight in their sorrows as
surely as they savor thorns over roses and sun by the light of the moon. They would be
completely unhappy except for Gomez's relative despair -- his older brother Fester
(Christopher Lloyd) has been inexplicably missing for the last 25 years. Complications arise
when a con woman (Elizabeth Wilson) produces Uncle Fester (or is he Yul Brynner's
ghost?) with the intent of locating the family fortune.
Although the plot is flimsier than cobweb it serves well enough, thanks to the production
designers' elaborate contributions and the performers' formidable panache. Eleven-year-old
Ricci is a revelation as the morbidly fascinating Wednesday. The kid was born deadpan.
She even resembles Huston, who is terribly funny as the concerned mother of this
close-knit if eccentric clan. But mainly, Huston's a vamp, clinging to her beloved Gomez
with the fluidity of smoke. And no wonder, for Julia's heroic Gomez is not only a
devastating romantic but a swashbuckling dreamboat.
The Addamses are inclined to swordplay, though this should in no way dissuade the feint of
heart. The only truly scary thing about the movie is Granny's cooking, which combines
recipes from "The Joy of Cooking" with suggestions from "Gray's Anatomy." Otherwise it is
a gothically convivial, if utterly silly scenario penned by Larry Wilson and Caroline
Thompson of "Beetlejuice" and "Edward Scissorhands," respectively. Since nothing really
bothers the Addamses, except normalcy, the writers are at their funniest when pitting the
characters against straight society. The opening scene finds them on the roof ready to poor
a caldron of boiling wassail on a group of chirpy carolers.
It's rather hard to dramatically challenge people who love pain, which means the film finally
runs down like a toy top. Still, cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld has executed his
directorial debut with considerable elan. With all those spectral effects, it must have been a
nightmarish undertaking. But given the Addams way of looking at things, that makes
Sonnenfeld one lucky stiff. An ooky, kooky, spooky oeuvre, "The Addams Family" is
decidedly not for the grave. Reviewed By Eric Pickup (NewsGroup)
When long-lost uncle Fester (Lloyd) reappears
suddenly after being presumed dead for twenty-five
years, the Addams family is overjoyed to welcome
him home. The Addams are an eccentric brood
created previously in both cartoons and a campy
television show. The problem for the close-knit
family, who are incidentally trying to kill each
other, is that Fester is a fake sent to steal the
secrets of the family's fortunes. As the Fester
imposter gets to know the family, he also grows to
like them and it becomes a question of where his
loyalties lie.
The movie is a great recreation of the family that
many of us grew up watching. Gomez (Julia),
Morticia (Huston), Wednesday (Ricci), Pugsley
and the rest are all present to amuse and delight us
with their macabre antics. It may be a little dark for
kids, but then again, they've probably seen worse -
just remind them that trying to kill each other with
bows & arrows, axes and electric chairs is not
acceptable behavior. Reviewed By Kenneth E. Mohnkern (NewsGroup)
Here's another recommendation for THE ADDAMS FAMILY. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but it's
worth the matinee price. I couldn't imagine ahead of time what sort of plot they might give us, but it really wasn't too
bad. There *is* a plot, but it's not the important thing here. Don't see this movie for the plot. Sit back and enjoy the
good performances.
Raul Julia is terrific as Gomez, energetic, swashbuckling, romantic (swooning over Morticia at her every
French word). Angelica Huston (Morticia) is also quite good, but I thought Christina Ricci stole the show as
Wednesday. Straightfaced, intense, but she's a little kid all the way - mischievous and playful. She's got a future in
film. (She was also in MERMAIDS.) The reason I had looked forward to seeing this was Huston and Julia. If they
had cast Cher (the original choice for Morticia) and Mel Gibson (or whoever) to star, it wouldn't be nearly as good.
Others - the woman who played the nasty mother; Dan Hedeya, the sleazy family lawyer; and even
Christopher Lloyd as Fester - seemed to be pretty flat and stereotypical here. That may be why the film started to
drag a bit for me in the middle, as we saw the evil plan unfolding. We saw less of the great characters and more of
the 2-D bad guys.
Director Barry Sonnenfeld (cinematographer for MILLER'S CROSSING and RAISING ARIZONA) does
a pretty good job in his first directorship. The camera has as much playful energy and vitality as the Addamses.
There are plenty of "point-of-view" shots, several with Thing (the best performance by a hand I've seen). The trip to
the vaults is well done -- spinning, falling, floating through mist. And you've got to stay aware -- there's always a
choice tidbit going on the in the background. (Granny: "Here, Kitty.")
I have to agree that the highlight of the film is the school talent show with all the parents in the audience and
children onstage singing "Getting to Know You," followed by Wednesday and Pugsly showing their swordfighting
abilities, Wednesday delivering a poetry-laden death scene.
There were plenty of kids in the theater. It's a film you can take them to, without having your intelligence
insulted.
Obligatory "favorite scenes" follow:
There are plenty of great lines, and as many great visuals, but here are a couple:
The driveway gate has closed on Tulley's coat. He's struggling to get free. Morticia (looking out the window,
noting who's come to visit): "It's Tulley, playing with Gate."
The opening shot, carolers in front of the house. Camera travels up the face of the house, revealing The
Addams Family, practicing a holiday tradition.
The next shot, a closeup of the Addams' cuckoo clock with little animated members of the family all over it.
Meet, bend, smooch. Reviewed By Frank Maloney (NewsGroup)
THE ADDAMS FAMILY is derived from Charles Addams's classic "New Yorker" cartoons and from the
1964-1966 U.S. television series (starring Carolyn Jones and John Astin). Rudin and Sonnenfeld, a first-time
director, decided to concentrate more on the cartoons than the TV version, to good effect, I think. The opening
sequence is a direct lift from a famous Addams Family cartoon, in fact. I enjoyed the resultant silliness. Indeed, one
of the strengths of the movie is that it is silly, it knows it's silly, it rejoices in its knowledge. It is serious about
silliness.
The performers represent a dream cast, the kind of inevitable choices that result from a lot of selling and
looking around. Anjelica Huston is the only woman in the U.S. who could have played Morticia as well as Carolyn
Jones did nearly 30 years ago, at least she surely gives us that impression. Morticia is the perfect mother, the
all-American mom seen in a negative, just as the Family itself is the all-American family with their every pixel
reversed. Of course, Morticia is a patrician mom, but she's still concerned with her children's happiness, as when
she temporarily interrupts little Wednesday about to electrocute her cheerfully loathsome brother Pugsley. One of
the ways we knows the Addamses are our opposites is their cheerfulness and domestic bliss. Another, of course, is
the current of sexuality always a molecule or two beneath the surface. Whether Tish is speaking French or strapped
to the Wheel, her eyes are merry and wise, never would she consider raising her voice or disturbing her flawless
complexion of dead-white porcelain with negative thoughts.
Whether Raul Julia comes up to manic John Astin's mark as Gomez Addams, Julia gives it a great shot. He is
the last of the great romantics, the last of the Latin Lovers. He glitters, he sparkles, he burns brightly. He is vastly
more alive than you and I will ever be. He also interjects some new emotions into Gomez' psychology, if that's the
word. This Gomez feels guilt, remorse, dejection, suspicion, depression, failure, and is not always in complete
control. And he sings and dances. And of course, Julia looks and sounds a lot more like a Gomez than Astin did.
Christopher Lloyd plays Uncle Fester, or does he? That is the crux of the plot, such as it is. The part was
pioneered by a defoliated Jackie Coogan. Lloyd apparently had to gain a lot of weight and loose some height to fit
into Fester's shapeless robe. The result is a remarkably unattractive Lloyd, a monster turning into a kindly uncle (in
the Addams's terms), torn between his villainous mother, played by Elizabeth Wilson, and the somewhat perilous
love the Addamses offer. There's a wonderful scene between Morticia and Fester in the Family's graveyard; she
tours the ancestors' graves and monument, filling him and us in on the grand tradition to which is an heir apparent.
Lloyd gives us an excellent performance, vastly better than anything Coogan could have come up with, if that's the
standard.
A word about Christina Ricci, who plays Wednesday: wonderful. Wednesday is full of woe, of course,
fascinated with ways to kill Pugsley, as who would not be. Ricci establishes a remarkably sophisticated character,
who more than holds own against the adult actors.
There's a lot about the look and feel of THE ADDAMS FAMILY that makes me think of EDWARD
SCISSORHANDS and BEETLEJUICE and no wonder. Caroline Thompson worked on both scripts and Larry
Wilson was Tim Burton's co-producer on BEETLEJUICE. Marc Shalman's score sounds like recycle Danny
Elfman, who composes for Burton's movies. The Family graveyard, in particular, bears visual resemblances for both
of the above Burton opera.
Over all, I was completely charmed and taken with THE ADDAMS FAMILY. It lived up to my every
expectation and then some. The grand ball scene reintroduced me to the sisters Flora and Fauna and to Cousin It,
inter alios. Like Addams's original cartoons, violence is never shown on the screen. Wednesday may pull the switch
on the Pugsley's electric chair, but we never see or hear the aftermath. Like the sexual tensions between Morticia
and Gomez, nothing is ever explicit; that would be too common, too much like the lives you and I live.
I have this theory about the appeal of the Addams Family. By turning the American family inside out, by
reversing our pixels, Charles Addams said to us that under our costumes we are all lovable monsters, that all our
lives are weird beyond imaging and explaining. That violence and sexuality lives with us as closely as our children or
our siblings. And it's ok. It's harmless and funny, and dangerous, and ever present. The Addams Family is who we
are, not the abberation, not the exception, but the rule, the archetype. And we love them.
I can recommend THE ADDAMS FAMILY to anyone who is not a terminally humorless dweeb, as are the
reviewer for Seattle's two daily newspapers, one of whom actually was clueless enough to complain, "And what are
these people, vampires or what?" That would be telling and it would spoil the joke. Pay full ticket price, if you have
to, you will get your money's worth.
