Cage Recommendation: Mom and Dad

There are two different types of Nicolas Cage performances; boring phoned in ones and gleefully off the rails over the top ones. 2018’s “Mom and Dad” gives us the latter, it is one of the most enjoyable pieces of Cage’s filmography to exist, and it is amazing. Written and directed by Brian Taylor, half of the team that wrote the Jason Statham romp “Crank”, he creates a film that is bewildering and fascinating all at the same time that leaves the viewer either wildly entertained or violently confused as to what they have just seen; This discrepancy in the audience is just a part of this film’s budding cult film status. Nicolas Cage stars along with Selma Blaire as two parents' disillusions by the façade of the All-American suburban family life, the twist is the approach Taylor utilizes that satirizes the usually novel and self-analyzing structure. 

The film opens up with a weird pseudo 1970s title sequence that doesn’t seem to fit in and doesn’t do a good job of setting the mood for the overall film. One would imagine this was an internal decision to throw off the viewer and welcome them to a weird black comedy. We are introduced to Brent Ryan (Cage) and his dysfunctional family (a stay at home wife, a rebellious pot smoking daughter and hyperactive son) preparing for another day in the life of upper middle-class suburbanites. As we get to know the family one can automatically realize that the dialogue is alien and jarring, as if it was written by a person that faintly observed a family at a wide distance and only picked up a few of the cadences of an actual conversation between family members and thought “This is it.” The out of placeness of the dialogue is so weirdly foreign that it is comedic. 

The bizarreness of the dialogue is exemplified when Brent previously confuses the maid for being Vietnamese after reciting his father’s ‘Nam stories where he “stabbed the Charlie with his own chicken peaker” he immediately apologizes to her, but she dismisses the comment as she is not Vietnamese. Mr. Ryan, as the Cantonese maid calls him, speaks to his daughter, Carly, about her having to cancel her plans with her boyfriend due to her grandparents coming over for dinner. As one would expect from a rebellious teen she refutes and blatantly insinuates that the only reason he doesn’t like her boyfriend is because he’s black. Brent retaliates by saying that is not the reason and he knows what teenage boys want, offended, she says she’s on her “rag” leading him to cover his ears yelling “lalalalala.” Very bizarre, very hilarious and routine for this family.

The key theme of this film is blatantly stated within the first 15 minutes as planned obsolescence, out with the old and in with the new, but inverted as the parents are compelled to kill their children. Carly is shown as a delinquent that smokes pot in her school’s bathroom with other shady teens, the conversations between these teens feel artificial and poorly written; her best friend, Reily, utters the line “my mom is such a penis,” obviously teens are more creative when it comes to name-calling but this was not the writer’s focus. After their smoke session Carly and her classmates witness a parent murder their child in front of their school and pandemonium ensues, reminiscent to George A. Romero’s “The Crazies” but replaced with adults vs teens. 

While this hysteria is developing, we see Kendall, Blaire, go about her day Pilates, expensive coffee, and gossiping with her trophy wife girl friend. She soon begins to question if this is all life has for her, defying the hands of time but ultimately being without a life goal. She, finding the inspiration from her friend, visits an old co-worker to ask for her old job back, only to be told “go back to school.” Defeated and having a violent breakdown in her car, Blaire gives one of the best performances in the entire film. There are some scenes with actual heart on display showing that these actors are building their characters. One stand out is after Brent takes a sledgehammer to a pool table, he just put together while sings a violent rendition of “The Hokey Pokey,” he and Kendall come together to talk heart to heart about their life and how it hasn’t gone as they expected it, the disillusion to the myth of the happy functional family finally hitting them. Brent was a up in coming figure in the business world but went from a salary of $145,000 dollars to barely making $45,000 to support his family, Kendall also laments on how she also had goals and aspirations for the future that ultimately didn’t pan out. Burnt out by the paths in life they choose, this instance forms the emotional backbone in a film that, on its surface, is simply a black comedy film.   The family dynamics are fairly generic and ultimately forgettable, but that isn't the focal point of the film. The focal point is watching an unhinged Nicolas Cage have a speech about the kind of things you find on the internet say “Mouth to dildo, dildo to ass, ass to ass, ANALBEADS” while attempt to murder his children.