| By Fred Topel
In Theaters September 16
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The Thing About My Folks, Paul Reiser’s self-written passion project, is an emotional journey with a father and son reconciling their relationship and dad’s relationship with mom. It’s got jokes, it’s got tears, it’s got wit, it’s got heart… and it’s got farts.
Yes, Peter Falk as dad, farts three times in the movie. While Reiser admits he loves a good fart joke, he won’t stand for just any fart joke. “It’s pop,” Reiser explained. “Everybody has a dad. If it was me, it would be pretty foul. And also what always makes me laugh is his innocence and his denial about it. Not his denial, but just like ‘What’s the big deal. Who am I bothering? There’s nobody here?’ ‘But I’m here.’ Timing is a big factor. The fact that it’s your father is much easier.”
Of course, it has to sound funny too. “I’ll tell you, the sound effect of it, that was something we kept playing with. I would say we had the most difference of opinion on the actual sound of the quality. It’s a very specific thing. Of course everybody would weigh in, ‘No, it needs to be a little thicker, a little longer, a little lighter.’ You wouldn’t believe how many adjectives and options there are at getting that sound. I’m very pleased with what we got.”
Reiser is no stranger to work that mixes comedy and drama. Mad About You dealt with as many real problems of marriage as it did sitcom set-ups. But Reiser has no particular highbrow preferences.
“I love ‘em all. Mike Myers kills me and Wedding Crashers, I loved The Wedding Crashers. Funny is funny. A good clown or a good nonthinking joke can be great. I like a well balanced diet. I like to shuffle ‘em up and have a little of everything. And what’s funny and intriguing and sometimes challenging about this movie is in presenting it to the public, you want to make clear it’s a comedy but when people leave there, it’s much more than a comedy. What I was very aware of the whole time is that it’s a balance back and forth. If you did a really, really funny, funny movie and then at the end you suddenly slam on the brakes and you have some terrible out of nowhere sad ending, I don't think that’s fair. I think this movie is balanced the whole way. It’s funny and then it’s not funny. It’s funny and then it’s touching and it’s sad and it’s surprising along the way. So by the time you get to the end, you’re ready for whatever comes up and that gives me a great satisfaction that there are laughs all the way to the very end. The more emotional stuff is there throughout and it doesn’t come up as a surprise in the ending.”
Though Falk’s character has much in common with his real father, Reiser can draw the line between truth and fiction. “Everything you write is autobiographical whether it is or it isn’t. We had another guy playing my dad in Mad About You but it wasn’t really my dad. And he reminded me so much of my dad, it was not surreal. It was kind of refreshing and warming. It was sort of like getting to visit but you write better lines than you have in real life. I wrote him funnier than my dad.”
Not to say that Mr. Reiser wasn’t funny. The standup, sitcom and movie star credits both his parents for inspiring his own humor. “He was funny in the sort of way that Peter’s funny, that he actually never tried to be. He would just say things that you would just stop for a second and go, ‘That makes no sense.’ He stopped drinking coffee at a certain point in his life and I said, ‘You still drinking coffee?’ And he said, ‘Well, you know when I have coffee every day at three o’clock? That’s not coffee, that’s tea.’ I go, ‘But then why don’t you say I’m having tea?’ ‘Because I’m having coffee. But in the cup it’s actually tea.’ ‘Well then why don’t you change the word?’ He says, ‘No, I still call it I’m having a coffee break. I’m going out for coffee. What’s in the coffee? It’s actually tea.’ But he couldn’t bring himself to say, ‘I’m going for tea.’ He wasn’t trying to be funny, he would just catch himself or I’d catch him. But my mom was pretty funny. My dad was more laugh funny, my mom was more witty. My mom was more punny and erudite. So between the two of them, there was a good amount of funny in the house.”
Comedy fans saw Reiser earlier this year in the documentary The Aristocrats, in which he joins his fellow comedians in telling a unique version of the world’s dirtiest joke. He did his interview three years ago but only saw the finished film upon its release.
“I saw it in an audience full of comedians so it was really perfect. Everybody knew everybody in the film. It really made me laugh. And actually what I got out of it, I thought it was kind of great that it was so sweet. As foul as the joke is, I loved how everybody loved hearing the joke. I loved how comedians enjoy what they do and they kind of had a respect and admiration for each other. That’s a side of comedy that I know and I don't think the public gets to see, that we more or less like each other and enjoy the same stuff.”
That said, he still won’t show it to his kids. “That movie was not made for kids. It’s like people say, ‘How am I going to bring my kids to that?’ Don’t. There’s plenty of stuff I don’t bring my kids to. I haven’t let my kids see Thing About My Folks yet. There’s some language in there that well, when you’re 15 okay. When you’re 10 or 5, no. They got enough movies for them to watch anyway. They can live without this one.”
The Thing About My Folks opens September 16. |
