Real Life

1979 comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Director Albert Brooks brings a film crew into the home of a typical American family of four living in Phoenix in order to film their real lives for the entertainment of future movie-goers. The filming, mostly because of the meddling of the narcissistic director, nearly ruins that family's "real life. Unfortunately, it's not very funny.

Sort of a precursor to modern reality television, and in a way, nearly prescient. So this could have and probably should have been very clever satire. Nope. Albert Brooks is annoying and splashes all over this one. There's not enough family, not enough Charles Grodin, not enough funny. There's too much snippy Albert Brooks narration, too many winks at the audience, too much 'look-at-how-clever-I-am" moments. True, that's part of the point and helps characterize Brooks' "character," but it's not what I wanted to see. The guys standing behind the family in the background of the poster up there? They're wearing cameras. They represent the only funny thing about the movie, too. Every time one of them wandered in frame, I almost laughed. Every time Albert Brooks was in a scene, however, I wanted to throw a glass through the television. I'm not sure why I expected this to be funny enough to spend an hour and forty minutes with, but I was way off. It's cynical and criminally unfunny instead.

Here I am enjoying Real Life: