Home Fries Review
by Scott Renshaw (renshaw AT inconnect DOT com)November 19th, 1998
HOME FRIES
(Warner Bros.)
Starring: Drew Barrymore, Luke Wilson, Catherine O'Hara, Jake Busey. Screenplay: Vince Gilligan.
Producers: Mark Johnson, Barry Levinson, Lawrence Kasdan and Charles Neuwirth.
Director: Dean Parisot.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes)
Running Time: 92 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
HOME FRIES opens with the bucolic, folksy feel of a girl-appeal comedy-drama. Sassy young Sally (Drew Barrymore), drive-thru cashier at a small town BurgerMatic, is visited by Henry Lever (Chris Ellis). Sally is eight months pregnant; married Henry is the father, though he never revealed his marriage to Sally during their affair. As Sally explains to her customer exactly why he can no longer have it his way, you might suspect that HOME FRIES will follow our plucky, unconventional heroine on her search for independence and true love through the world of greasy dining -- HOME FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, or something of the sort.
Be prepared to dismiss such notions quickly, as Henry leaves their encounter...only to be pursued by an ominous black helicopter through the woods until he has a heart attack. Thus begins a darkly twisted, truly unexpected comic concoction from a decade-old script by "X-Files" producer Vince Gilligan (who clearly has a thing for black helicopters). It seems that the copter was piloted by brothers Dorian (Luke Wilson) and Angus (Jake Busey), two Air National Guardsmen who also happen to be Henry's stepsons. At the insistence of their maniacal mother (Catherine O'Hara), they've scared philandering stepdad to death, with the as-yet-unknown object of Henry's affections next on their list. The first order of business, however, is finding out who was on the same frequency as the copter's radio during their ambush, leading Dorian to an undercover assignment at a certain BurgerMatic, and a tentative relationship with a certain drive-thru cashier.
The kind of quirky humor HOME FRIES deals out can easily become oppressive if not directed with a sure hand. First-time feature director Dean Parisot seems to know just how to drop the peculiar into a scene without pointing at it for you and slapping your knee. A sensitive moment in which Dorian presents Sally a gift for her baby -- a toy helicopter he describes as "non-toxic, I think" -- is set against a grease fire in the BurgerMatic kitchen. Henry's wake features Zamfir's pan flute rendition of "You Light Up My Life." And the sequence of most profound bonding between our two young lovers occurs at a natural childbirth class where the instructor tells her students "you didn't get into this with your legs closed, and you won't get out of it that way."
It's all consistently off-beat in a way that's more often refreshing than just plain weird, but it also comes with an undercurrent of sincerity. Luke Wilson -- deadpan in an "aw shucks"-appealing kind of way -- does a nice job with Dorian's ambivalence over his bizarre family dynamics and his attraction to Sally's sweet (relative) normalcy. In fact, the search for a "normal" family comes to play a significant role in the proceedings. Dorian and Angus still share bunk beds in their childhood room, frozen in the time they were abandoned by their father; Sally's father (Lanny Flaherty) is an alcoholic in and out of the good graces of her mother (Shelley Duvall). There's something almost touching to the convoluted family tree Dorian describes for Sally's baby, since it comes with the hope that the next generation will somehow be less screwed up than the last.
It's too bad that HOME FRIES concludes with an overwrought helicopter-car chase that feels ridiculously out of place. It's also too bad that Drew Barrymore can't make Sally more interesting as the object of everyone's love or hate, her character slipping in and out of focus like her generically Southern accent. Ultimately, the story isn't even really about her. If anyone is the true protagonist, it's Dorian in his search for affection outside a dysfunctional family where mom spews crocodile tears at her husband's death and big brother pumps carbon monoxide into the trailer of an unsuspecting woman. Not exactly the stuff of a folksy, girl-appeal comedy-drama, is it?
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 crisp fries: 7.
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