Some actors will forever be associated with famous roles. Daniel Radcliffe will always be Harry Potter. Christopher Reeve was associated with the Superman role for the rest of his life. When it comes to Michael Keaton, however, there are a number of characters we think of that link to the actor, thanks to his comedic and dramatic takes. Earlier this year, Keaton brought back Beetlejuice for a long-awaited sequel. He also reprised Batman in The Flash. For me, Keaton will always be Mr. Mom, and I thought of that movie often while watching Keaton’s latest movie Goodrich, playing now in theaters.
In the film, Michael Keaton plays a husband and father whose wife unexpectedly checks herself into rehab. While Andy Goodrich has a solid relationship with his adult daughter, Grace (Mila Kunis), he’s not 100% sure how to raise the adolescent twins he has had with his current wife. So Andy finds himself in some predicaments that mirror Mr. Mom, when Keaton played a dad forced to stay at home with the kids when he’s laid off from his full-time job.
Mr. Mom remains one of Keaton’s best movies. So when we spoke for Goodrich, I brought up the parallels, and he ended up telling me a sweet story about how life often imitates the 1983 comedy. Said Keaton:
I just dropped them off the other day, my grandkids. And it's interesting. He's only seven. He said, ‘No, no, no. I'm good. I'm good going to class.’ Which, of course I hate. But he goes, over his shoulder. ‘I'm good! I wanna go by myself!’ And her, she didn't want me to leave. And by the way? It was 15 minutes early. So I wasn't late.
Michael Keaton was referring to a scene in Goodrich where his character has to drop his kids off at school, but he doesn’t know the protocol. And if you are an audience member of a certain age, there’s no way to watch that scene and not think of his Mr. Mom character, Jack, doing carpool drop off wrong at his kids’ school. You’ve probably even used the line, “You’re doing it wrong.” It remains one of the funniest lines in a Keaton comedy.
The more we talked, the more Keaton got reflective about Mr. Mom, and where that movie arrived in his filmography. He wasn’t quite the household name at that stage, and he was taking projects that kept him interested, but also employed. As Keaton explained it:
I took (Mr. Mom) because it was well written. It was John Hughes's first movie, and it was really funny. I just knew it was funny. I just remember also thinking, ‘I look like I'm 10, so we’re going to have to rewrite some stuff or adjust to it.’ You know, I got married… I was a young dad. So he's a young dad. You get married, as people do sometimes, early and blah, blah, blah. But I really liked doing it. It was a little harder than most people think, because some stuff had to be fixed. But I like it.
And the choices that he made in that movie no doubt inform some of the ones that he makes in Goodrich. He has an excellent collaborator on screen in Mila Kunis, and the young actors playing his kids are adorable. Look for Goodrich in a theater near you. And check our guide to upcoming 2024 movies to see what other films are playing from now through the end of the year.
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