Grown Ups

In Grown Ups, a genial American summer comedy that if nothing else serves as an old-fashioned alternative to overwrought comic book adaptations and manic television remakes, Adam Sandler plays Lenny Feder. A leading Hollywood agent who barks down the phone, is married to a fashion designer, Roxanne (Salma Hayek), and lives in a Los Angeles mansion, Feder is starting to realise his adolescent sons reek of snotty privilege and self-entitlement.

In one of several contextual paradoxes that a commercially lesser – i.e. more considered – film might have foundered on, Grown Ups suggests that the Hollywood culture is a blight on America, and that the country’s real values have been devalued and lost; the production aims to make money off repudiating itself. But it does so in such a dopey, feel good way that not everyone will notice. Like too many Adam Sandler comedies, it knows how to play dumb.

First seen in late ‘70s flashback, where they’re a championship winning basketball team seemingly only lacking Danny Partridge, the 40-something friends at the centre of the reunion plot are delineated with cookie cutter efficiency: Lenny is hinting at social dissatisfaction, Eric (Kevin James) is a chunky failure, Kurt (Chris Rock) is a struggling house husband, Rob (Rob Schneider) is doused in mystical codswallop, and Marcus (David Spade) still thinks he’s 18-years-old.

When their former coach passes away they’re reunited for the funeral and a weekend away together, a set-up here played not for the suggestive power of memory but the easy drill of old friendships. The male leads basically sit around and throw lines back and forth, occasionally veering off the script by Sandler and Fred Wolf, although there’s nowhere near the level of improvisation you might expect when five former or current stand-up comics get together.

The problem is director Dennis Dugan, a long-time Sandler sidekick who in his fourth feature directing the box-office stayer still betrays little sign of visual acuity. There are some quite clumsy shots, tracking across a row of chairs as the characters affectionately insult each other that are Dugan’s idea of expressing the moment. It’s so jarringly bad that his otherwise workmanlike compositions and banal lighting come off as welcome relief.

A passable proportion of the verbal slapstick is amusing, although sometimes the cast are too eager to laugh at each other; they’re determined to show how much fun they’re having. Grown Ups’ intent can be best summed up by the gag that keeps recurring: accidents that befall the overweight Eric, which include but are not limited to collapsing an above ground swimming pool, falling down a hillside, and stranding the overwhelmed motorboat he’s meant to be water-skiing behind. If it was a Fox release you’d half expect him to routinely exclaim “D’oh”.

The supporting ensemble of wives hover on the periphery, only occasionally used to comic effect despite including gifted former Saturday Night Live cast member Maya Rudolph, although at one stage they’re given the opportunity to wear swimsuits to not so subtly buttress the masculine credentials of the male leads. It’s one of the few moments when anxiety about the encroachment of middle age becomes apparent, but otherwise Grown Ups serves as an amiable antidote to the trend of time sharpening bitter memories. None of the characters carries a discernible spark from the past, which is why so few people will remember this comedy in the future.