Bennett’s Song

In a family with fourteen kids, every night is a girl’s night out!

(2018) Family Comedy (Vision) Tara Reid, Dennis Haskins, Aphrodite Nikolovsky, Calhoun Koenig, Harley Wallen, Victoria Mullen, Morgan Nimmo, Arielle Olkhovsky, Joseph Ouelette, Dennis Marin, Aleksandra Luca, Evan Keoshian, La’Kenya Howard-Luster, Da’Mya Gogoua, Rees Curran, Cayleigh Brown, Maya Patel, Janellyn Woo, Lucas Yassayan, Chevonne Wilson. Directed by Harley Wallen

 

Family is family; they come in all shapes and sizes. One person’s idea of what a family is may be completely different than what another person might think they are. No two families are ever alike; they all have their own dynamics, their own issues.

\Susan Song (Nikolovsky) is a cheerful 40-something dentist who is a divorcee left with seven adopted kids of various ethnicities. She meets ex-MMA fighter and current gym owner Cole Bennett (Wallen), the son of a Saturday morning TV show host (Haskins) who something of a touchy-feely version of Bill Nye the Science Guy. He’s a widower who, like Susan, has been left raising seven adopted kids of various ethnicities on his own.

The two hit it off and begin dating – awkwardly. It becomes clear soon enough that the two belong together but a family of fourteen kids of varying ages and ethnicities is going to be no easy task to raise. With Pearl Song (Koenig) having dreams of pop stardom, the family soon realizes they are going to have to work together to make things work for everyone. With a neighbor (Reid) who seems hell-bent on making the new blended family miserable and incidents of racism causing anguish for some of the younger kids, that’s going to be easier said than done.

This is very much a family film in the vein of Cheaper By the Dozen and The Brady Bunch. There is definitely a warmth and charm generated by the film but unfortunately it isn’t enough to overcome glaring problems. Perhaps most glaring of all is the acting; it is wooden, stiff and unnatural. The line delivery sounds more like a script reading than a finished product. It doesn’t help that the dialogue is clunky, with the jokes sitcom-stale and hoary (“Sure she’s smart and pretty and she’s standing right behind me isn’t she”) in an inoffensive way. You don’t need to be vulgar to be funny but you don’t need to be inoffensive to be family-friendly either.

When your two biggest names come from Sharknado and Saved by the Bell you have problems. There’s just nothing here that approaches even the lowest standard of acceptable filmmaking. To be fair the writers do attempt to address 21st century family issues like racism, blended families, financial issues and bullying but the problem here is that it doesn’t address them believably.

I get that indie filmmaking sometimes requires a little bit of a lower bar when considering the inexperience of a newer cast and crew but this is more like a filmed version of a community theater play and a bad one at that. In fact, saying that is an insult to community theater and I don’t mean it to be. There’s nothing about this movie that I can recommend unless you’re itching to see Tara Reid in a villainous role.

REASONS TO GO: The acting is wooden and lifeless. The dialogue is cliché. The comedy is all recycled from sitcoms.
REASONS TO STAY: Their heart is in the right place.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some sexual innuendo.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Dennison, who was 15 when the movie was released, was legally unable to see it in his native New Zealand.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Vimeo, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/29/18: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Yours, Mine and Ours
FINAL RATING: 3/10
NEXT: Juliet, Naked

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Meet the Patels

Now that you’ve met the Patels…

(2015) Documentary (Alchemy) Ravi Patel, Geeta Patel, Champa V. Patel, Vasant K. Patel, Meredith Philpott, Audrey Allison Wauchope. Directed by Geeta Patel and Ravi Patel

Finding one’s soul mate is hard enough in this modern world. Add to that the pressure of one’s family to get married and have kids and it falls under the category of “how is this even possible?”

Ravi Patel is an actor and filmmaker who was born in the United States to Indian parents. He characterizes them as the happiest couple that he knows and they certainly seem to be very loving and very happy together. But they are concerned; their son is approaching his 30th birthday and isn’t married which in Indian culture is, as his sister Geeta puts it, Red Alert.

Ravi’s two year relationship with pretty red head (and completely Caucasian) Audrey Wauchope has just ended; he was so hung up on his parents approval that he never told them that he was dating an American girl, fearing that they wouldn’t accept her. Now single, he realizes he wants that extended family that he sees all around him; the family gatherings, the kids, the home, everything. So, figuring that since an arranged marriage worked for his parents, he would allow them to play matchmaking since the American method of dating wasn’t working for him.

He is set up on Biodata, a matchmaking website aimed at Indians. His parents are eager to set him up with a Patel – no, this isn’t an incest thing but more of a cultural thing, indicating that their hometowns are near the village where his parents grew up. This would make the odds better that they shared Ravi’s values as passed down by his parents.

Many of the candidates live all over the country and Ravi, being a struggling actor, doesn’t exactly have an endless bank account. However his father is very well off and offers to purchase air fare for a cross-country dating tour. His sister Geeta tags along to record everything, as she has from the beginning.

When the dates prove to be unsuccessful (we are never told whether Ravi or the women he is meeting are the ones who are not interested in second dates), he goes to a wedding at his parents behest where they try to hook him up. He goes to a Patel convention (apparently that’s a thing) and does a speed-dating thing there. Nothing seems to work. To complicate matters, things are heating up again with Audrey whom Ravi never really got over and when his parents find out, the curry is going to really hit the fan.

This is as much a family home movie as it is a documentary and a romantic comedy as much as it is a home movie. The screening I attended at the South Asian Film Festival in Orlando was largely attended by Indian families who laughed loudly at some of the cultural things (like parents calling multiple times during a date) that American audiences might not get. However, having parents that exasperate their children (and vice versa) is pretty much universal and the love and affection in this family is clearly universal. This is a family everyone is going to be charmed by.

While the movie drags a bit in the middle as we watch Ravi get more and more frustrated with his lack of success, the end of the movie in which Ravi and his family reach an understanding is actually very touching. This isn’t one of those documentaries that’s going to change the world or our understanding of it, although the insights into Indian culture are fascinating. However, it is the kind of movie that will put a smile on your face and remind you that there is nothing better in this life than your family, however you chose to define it.

REASONS TO GO: Clever combination of documentary and rom-com. Heartwarming look at Indian family dynamics.
REASONS TO STAY: Gets a little bit monotonous in the middle.
FAMILY VALUES: A few mildly dirty words and thematic content.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Gujarat, the Indian state that Vasant and Champa Patel were from, also was the home state of Gandhi.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/7/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 83% positive reviews. Metacritic: 70/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Love Me
FINAL RATING: 7/10
NEXT: A Faster Horse