“Cheaper By the Dozen” (20th Century Fox)
First off, “Cheaper By the Dozen” is not a remake of the Henry Fonda/Lucille Ball comedy “His, Mine and Ours.” Instead it is a remake of the old Clifton Webb/Myrna Loy film which told the story of the actual Gilbreth family. This new version is not a retelling of that story but rather one that just uses the fact that there is a family with twelve children – not a combined family but one where all twelve kids have the same mother and father.
This family is the Baker family (Baker’s dozen – har dee har har) and they live in Midlands, Illinois. The father of the group is Tom Baker (Steve Martin) and he is a high school coach. The mother, Kate (Bonnie Hunt), is an aspiring author. Together they manage to do a fairly successful job of raising twelve children. Well there are only eleven at home as oldest daughter Nora (Piper Perabo) is out living on her own with her boyfriend (Ashton Kutcher).
One day Tom gets offered a coaching job in Evanston. This is his alma mater and a place where he has always dreamed of coaching. He and Kate decide to take the job, and move over the objections of their kids. Shortly after they get to Evanston, Kate learns her book is being published and she has to go to New York. Tom is left home alone to do the parenting.
Chaos ensues and bedlam erupts. Still you know that everything is going to work out okay and that peace will come once again to happy valley. And it does. But in between there are a lot of laughs and even a tear or two.
Martin and Hunt are great as the parents. Kutcher steals the movie with his cameo. Tom Welling impresses as the oldest son, and Hilary Duff has a few good moments as the next to oldest daughter. All of the kids are great in their roles and make for twelve good reasons to see the film.
The movie is rated PG for mild comic violence.
This is a heartwarming movie that would be icky if it weren’t so funny. Like “Elf” it manages to walk the thin line between schmaltz and sarcasm. It succeeds and provides a full two hours of good, clean fun that will send audiences out feeling better about themselves and life in general.
This is a movie with a message about putting family first. It gets its points across with humor and heart and that’s a very good way of doing it. Plus there are more laughs than you expect. Treat yourself to a movie that is twelve times better than many others out today. Go see “Cheaper By the Dozen.”
I scored “Cheaper By the Dozen” a bargain 7 out of 10.
