Despite the overall cute tone and the TV-movie production values, "Mr. Mom" is a blast, thanks primarily to a truly funny lead actor. Writer John Hughes takes the role-reversal premise of an engineer having to stay at home while the wife reenters the workforce, and places it smack in the middle of the early-80s recession (which lends the movie a solid authenticity).
Most of the comedy derives from Keaton's earnest portrayal as he navigates the jungles of housewifedom (supermarket chaos, hostile vacuum cleaners and falling into stay-at-home complacency) and seeming ease with being the movie's comedic fulcrum. Hughes' script plumbs the depths of a working man faced with the daunting responsibilities of domesticity for laughs, while colliding the housewife's experience with the the corporate boardroom mentality.
Things could easily have slipped into generic chick-flick territory. But Keaton makes all the difference.
7/10
Most of the comedy derives from Keaton's earnest portrayal as he navigates the jungles of housewifedom (supermarket chaos, hostile vacuum cleaners and falling into stay-at-home complacency) and seeming ease with being the movie's comedic fulcrum. Hughes' script plumbs the depths of a working man faced with the daunting responsibilities of domesticity for laughs, while colliding the housewife's experience with the the corporate boardroom mentality.
Things could easily have slipped into generic chick-flick territory. But Keaton makes all the difference.
7/10