Lost gem.
Added 6/30/2009
This is a unique film. Not everyone is going to appreciate it, but there really are few films like it. It is one of those movies that fail with mainstream audiences when they first hit theaters only to finally gain some recognition many years later.
What I really liked about it was the ambiguity of the subject matter. Though it seems that the parents are indeed cannibals, because much of the film is from the point of view of a young boy with an over active imagination, that point is never entirely settled (at least in my mind). This aspect also explains the slightly hallucinatory feel of the picture.
And while the film truly captures what it is like to be suspicious of, and confused by, the adult world, really it works best as as an allegory for a young vegetarian who is repulsed by meat and can't understand why his parents insist on feeding it to him. This is particularly obvious when you pay attention to how vegetables are inserted into the film and the role (or lack thereof) that they play.
I eat meat, but I know people who grew up repulsed by meat. By associating animal meat with human, it puts you in the shoes of a child who feels that repulsion....and makes you take a second glance at the roast beef sandwich on your kitchen table.
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I'm not very hungry tonight ...
Added 11/13/2007
The opening scenes of this "dark comedy" feature great 1950s cars, decor, costumes, and musical score! Perky housewife "Mom" is a kitchen whiz who serves up tasty looking left-overs every night. White shirt-and-tie "Dad" is ravenous after putting in long days at Toxico. (Clever company name!) Little Michael just wants to make friends at his new school - and eat something for dinner that's not "mystery meat." What a wholesome, 50s era set-up for a comedy about cannibals! I was having a fun time and even asking for "seconds" at the dinner table - until the little boy started having nightmares. Then I lost my appetite completely.
This is NOT a comedy and definitely not for the kiddies. The first fifteen minutes or so are fine, but watch out! When the film-makers start splashing blood around, "Parents" becomes a totally different kind of movie. That's too bad because it could have been a fine little comedy.
I have two questions for the screenwriter of this kitchen fiasco - what did the family eat in their old hometown, and why does their son aged 9 or 10 wait until now to refuse to eat "meat"? My mother made the worst liver in town and we kids somehow choked it down. "C'mon, Michael, how about taking just one bite of this delicious meat dish? Your mother slaved in the kitchen all afternoon..."
Ugh, please pass the Tums and hit the rewind button on the VCR. Think I'll pass on dessert tonight, too!
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Am I crazy or were his parents actually NOT cannibals?
Added 8/25/2007
I'm probably wrong about this (as demonstrated by all the other reader comments), but what I got from this film was a dark eerie tale about a disturbed child whose father's job happens to involve experimentation with corpses. I think the father was bringing the body parts home to experiment on, not eat. He was shown to be obsessed with his job, so this makes sense to me -- and would also explain why he doesn't want his son in the cellar, to find out his secret, that he's been illegally bringing corpses home to experiment upon.
Furthermore, when the school psychologist is killed, they don't show who did it. I think the psychotic child did it, and didn't even realize it.
Finally, at the end of the film, the father knows that the son has seen the corpses in the basement, and THAT'S why he says "So now you know our little secret." As for the meat, he never says, "This is dead people." He just says, "You'll learn to love it, just like your mother did," which is just a response to the boy refusing to eat his meat for a couple weeks in a row. When he sets out to KILL the child, it's only because the child tried to kill him first and it pushed him over the top!
That's my interpretation anyway. I don't think they were cannibals. If so, that's kind of a lame ending.
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Unusual, quirky, and possibly unique
Added 12/4/2006
Something dark and sinister lurks below the surface of the otherwise polished surface of 1950s suburbia in this unusual and quirky movie. The bland, boring 50s is revealed to be anything but that as Balaban creates an increasingly menacing atmosphere, building up the tension to a fever pitch before the deep, dark secret is finally revealed. When it is, the strangeness and incongruity of it all just adds to the drama and tension, and one wonders how the movie will end. Well, it does end a little predictably, but overall it's a fine movie with a very odd premise, which I won't reveal here so as not to spoil it for you. But this first directorial effort by Bob Balaban is worth your time if you enjoy different, strange, or offbeat movies, and this one certainly has those qualities in spades.
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Silliness that could have been, but was not, inspired.
Added 7/19/2006
Parents (Bob Balaban, 1989)
TV director Balaban makes his feature debut with this little comedy about which I can't quite figure out what to say. I know I was unimpressed with it; I simply can't figure out why.
The story concerns Michael (Bryan Madorsky, in his only screen role), a schoolboy who comes to believe that his parents Nick (Brokeback Mountain's Randy Quaid) and Lily (The Exorcism of Emily Rose's Mary Beth Hurt) are cannibals. This, obviously, messes with his head, which puts him on contact with school counselor Millie Dew (A Hatful of Rain's Sandy Dennis, in one of her final screen appearances). Is it all in his head, or are his parents really cannibals?
There is nothing terribly wrong with this film, per se; the acting is competent if nothing special, the script is predictable but decent, and at times amusing, the direction is solid without being notable, etc. It's average to the point of being innocuous-- which is a problem in a film about a kid who thinks his parents may be trying to feed him parts of other human beings.
And you know, for some reason, I just fgured out what's been nagging me this whole time. So how did it take this kid until he was ten, or thereabouts (I don't remember his age ever being specified), to start wondering what it is he's eating? And why does he stop? It makes no sense-- and as it's the basis of the movie, it undermines everything else. **
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