THE ADDAMS FAMILY. Directed Barry Sonnenfeld; written by Caroline Thompson and Larry Wilson; produced Scott Rudin for Paramount. Starring Angelica Huston, Raul Julia and Christopher Lloyd. Rated Pg-13.
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The Addams Family performs a delicate and difficult balancing act with a great deal of success.
Certainly, the director, writers and actors have interesting material to work with, if not much actual plot. The story, such as it is, is based on the macabre cartoons of Charles Addams (which also formed the basis of the vintage TV series). With inspiration like this, though, the characters are definitely the thing.
And the people in charge fortunately had the good sense to realize that you can't be just a little bit outlandish with a movie like this. You have to be outlandish on a truly grand scale.
But at the same time—and here's where the balance comes in—these characters actually seem real, in spite of their impossibly odd behavior. The movie takes itself seriously enough, but not too seriously, and that's quite an achievement.
One might expect Lloyd to do well in such a setting, since he's been playing outrageous characters for years. The wildly successful mugging around of "serious" actors Julia and Huston, however, is a delightful surprise. (Not so much so for Huston, I suppose, after her star turn in Witches.)
The excellence of the special effects also contributes to the overall "realism" of the movie. A long list of most impressive and undoubtedly difficult effects has to be headed (so to speak) by the antics of Thing, a disembodied hand which acts just like a faithful and quite talented family pet. It's actually the hand of a professional magician (Christopher Hart) and what he and the effects people do with it is quite astounding.
It's a shame that the writers couldn't come up with a more engrossing storyline. In spite of its fascinating performances, wonderful production design and incredible special effects, it drags too much for a full-out recommendation. But when it is good, it is very, very good.
January 8, 1992