Grown Ups Amy Damron Introduction to Film Instructor Steven Ryan September 6, 2010 The most interesting movie that I have had the pleasure of watching recently was the movie Grown Ups. I wanted to go to the theater and see this movie because I enjoy comedies, and I usually relate really well with movies produced and played in by Adam Sandler. The comedy that was portrayed in the previews for this movie always got my attention and had me laughing, so I felt it would be worth it to go see it.
Based upon the all-star cast I figured it would be a hit. These types of movies suit my personality and I can relate to the humor. It was generally a feel good movie. Grown Ups is an Adam Sandler comedy film released the end of this past June. Lenny, Eric, Kurt, Marcus, and Rob are five friends who have known each other since junior high school.
They win their basketball championship under the leadership of their coach, Bobby “ Buzzer” Ferdinando, who was also like a mentor to them.
During the victory celebration, Coach “ Buzzer” encourages them to live their lives as they played the game: “ You don’t want to have any regrets at the final buzzer of life;” the theme of the movie. The movie really focuses on the importance of family, friends, having fun and enjoying life with no regrets. It begins thirty years after graduating from high school when the five former middle school basketball teammates get news that their former coach and mentor has passed away.
They unite and meet for the first time at their coach’s funeral, and the five friends meant so much to the coach that they are given his ashes to spread as his last wishes.
With their wives and kids in tow, they spend the 4th of July weekend gathered at the lake house where they celebrated their championship years earlier, and to now mourn the passing of their late coach. The guys spend the weekend getting reacquainted. Over the course of the Fourth of July weekend, the five friends realize that just because they’ve all grown up and started families doesn’t mean that they’ve lost that old spark.
They have a lot of fun getting to know each other’s families and doing lots of fun activities. The comedy content of the movie really gets going as each character’s personality gets a chance to shine.
I felt very comfortable watching this movie, almost like I was a close friend. The movie had a very familiar feel to it, as I could relate to their humor. It seems like they were just acting like everyday people. It makes me wonder if some parts of the movie were improvised instead of scripted.
I realize some people actually did not like the aspect of the movies casual humor and expected more, I do have to admit that the content of the movie was really not that deep, but it was still entertaining to me. I like feeling like I am in on these guys’s inside jokes.
The art of the actor (Adam Sandler) is clearly visible in the movie. In this movie Adam Sandler, along with the other main characters of the cast, can definitely be referred to as interpreter or commentator actors (Joseph M. Boggs, 2008).
I feel they slightly altered themselves for their roles, but they also had a lot of their own personalities coming through, you can tell these guys are really friends in real life. At the beginning of the movie the period of the 1970’s is shown and then it jumps ahead thirty years to the present time. This makes the casting director’s job easier for the characters of the movie because they can hire two different sets of actors without having to match up or use makeup on the characters for the in-between years.
The performance of the actors is considered ensemble acting because all five characters are of equal importance, and none of them has the starring role (Joseph M. Boggs, 2008). Grown Up’s stars; Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider, have different personality traits and they effectively play off of each other with their separate personalities. I think this is one of the main attractions to the movie for me because all these actors are so funny in their own way that putting them together makes explosive comedy!
Although Adam Sandler is a great actor he makes sure by also being the producer of the film that he has a very significant contribution into the creative process of how the movie is put together and portrayed to the audience. There are many geographical factors to the film.
There is a period piece at the beginning of the movie that represents what teenagers looked like in the 1970’s. It shows all the boys with uniforms and hairstyles from back in this time. The movie then moves on to many present-day domestic settings, showing the homes of each friend. Next, the movie has a brief setting in a hurch for the funeral, this set helped to create the emotional atmosphere of the mourning of their beloved coach.
Then after that, filming location was at the lake for the lake house scene, which is the main setting. The verisimilitude for the movie is very accurate and real to the movie’s feel. The scene of all the families at the waterpark was an on-scene location, it was actually shot at a waterpark and it added much visual impact to the movie. The movie Grown Ups in a nutshell is meaningful to me because it represents that growing older doesn’t necessarily mean growing up.
It shows that true friends can pick up where they left off at any point in life and still be friends even if they have missed out on the previous years. The point of the movie is that adulthood is what you make of it, and sometimes it is okay to not want to act like a grown up all the time. It expresses that adulthood should not be taken so serious that you miss out on all the fun. Of course most importantly, you don’t want to have any regrets when the final buzzer of life goes off.
References: Joseph M. Boggs, D. W. (2008). The Art of Watching Films. New York: McGraw-Hill.
