The Thing About My Folks
The thing about Ben's folks is that, after four decades, they're breaking up. It starts when Sam (Peter Falk) finds a letter from Muriel (Olympia Dukakis). She's gone off to find herself, he tells Ben (writer/producer Paul Reiser,Mad About You) and daughter-in-law Rachel (Elizabeth Perkins). He isn't as upset as he is confused. Mostly, he thinks it's just a misunderstanding. Ben and Rachel offer to let him stay with them, so he starts spending all his time with his son. Sam doesn't have anything else to do and Ben, a freelance writer, can't bring himself to say no. Meanwhile, Ben's older sisters put their heads together to determine where their mother has gone and to make sure she's all right. After a bumpy start, Ben and Sam bond while on a road trip through upstate New York.The Thing About My Folksis sensitively acted by a talented cast and appears to have been made with love (Reiser wrote the part of Sam specifically for Falk). It elicits a few laughs and even a few tears, but the language is unnecessarily profane--no one would confuse the Kleinmans for the Sopranos--and the humor can be a little crass--for a film aimed at adults, gags about flatulence seem ill-advised. Still, Reiser's heart is in the right place. Sometimes that can be enough, although Raymond De Felitta's previous film,Two Family House, is a more original look at the complexities of family life.--Kathleen C. Fennessy