Splitting Heirs
July 13th 2008 23:48
The plot is perfectly predictable for a comedy made in 1993 - a British Duke has a child with an American hippie, they lose the baby, then find him again, but there's a switch and the real baby turns out to be Eric Idle. Of course this is the plot. It could be nothing else.
Why, then, would Umbrella Entertainment choose to release this on DVD in Australia?
Well, probably for the same reason that I chose to watch and review it: I liked it.
No, it wasn't particularly memorable, nor was it really funny. You'd never rank this as one of the great classics of comedy, but leaving this on the heap of forgotten theatrical releases would be denying its charms.
Mainly, this movie appeals to me because of its significance in my life. In 1993, I was a teenager, cackling at slapstick comedy, watching old Monty Python movies. Watching Eric Idle and his co-star, John Cleese, get up to more shenanigans, was much more than a cinematic experience, it was a moment of comfort.
While most of the script is flat and uninspired, Idle throws enough terrible lines at us to make us laugh at something:
Idle: You know I'm bisexual... when I want to have sex, I have to buy it.
Rick Moranis plays the part of the kooky American heir to the throne and he's awful in this. His talents are lost in a script that barely gives him a chance to do anything. This is Bob McKenzie, Louis from "Ghostbusters" and Seymour from "The Little Shop of Horrors". It just makes me laugh to look at his moppish face.
Moranis' mother is played by Barbara Hershey, a long-standing actress of good reputation. Here she's a lusty Duchess, over the top and magnificent. This is late 80s comedy, and she shines, flaunting her hazardous cleavage at any man with a pulse.
She doesn't look quite like her photo here... in "Splitting Heirs", Zeta-Jones is quite a bit younger, and delightfully inexperienced, attempting to pull off her role, but coming across as quite amateurish, a thrill to see compared to her later roles, where she'd blow the lens off the camera with a simple look.
While there are other, more successful post-Python movies to watch, Idle's "Splitting Heirs" is definitely worth a watch, if for nothing else than the excellent collection of 90s memorabilia.
I say: One to watch on a dreary Sunday, like yesterday. I couldn't be bothered to put in something bleak and slow, with the grey clouds tempting me to fling DVDs at passerbys.
See it for: John Cleese makes up for the films faults by nailing his role as a bizarrely gruesome attorney.
* this image is from divxplanet.com
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