#243: North
Release Date: July 22nd, 1994
Format: Streaming (Tubi)
Written by: Andrew Scheinman and Alan Zweibel
Directed by: Rob Reiner
1 Star
Rob Reiner’s 1994 film, North, is the target of Roger Ebert’s most notorious movie review in his almost five decades of film criticism: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."
I agree, Mr. Ebert. It’s a pretty loathsome movie, on a few different levels.
First, it’s a dumb, unfunny premise. A sixth grader feels like he’s underappreciated by his parents, so he hires a lawyer and becomes a “free agent” so that he’s legally adoptable by any family in the world who is lucky enough to have him. Then a classmate capitalizes on North’s situation and leads a worldwide revolt against parents by kids who think they should have it easier (no more chores, no more being told what to do, etc.). It’s stupid. It’s not funny. I couldn’t wait for the movie to end.
Secondly, I hated the worldview presented in the script from Andrew Scheinman and Alan Zweibel. They depict North’s parents as flawed, sure, but deep down they’re just good Jewish folks who love their son. They’re way better than the other families who are trying to adopt North, such as the Texan family, who are a couple of dumb hicks who want to get North fat on barbecue and potato salad, or the Hawaiian family who want to use North to promote the island as a desirable destination for mainland Americans to move to, or the “Eskimo” family who are about to send their beloved grandpa to his death on an ice floe. Then there are Amish and African and Chinese and French families who are also reduced to simple stereotypes for North to reject. None of these representations are satirical from what I could tell, they’re not clever or funny. I won’t go as far as to say they are hateful, but they’re distasteful and at times racist.
Lastly, the balls on Scheinman and Zweibel to end the movie with “and it was all a dream.” The absolute balls. Listen, you two cooked up this stupid premise and made us sit through it for an hour and a half, so at least have the guts to let the film die an honorable death. Don’t make a movie this ugly and stupid and then pull the rip cord so you can claim that it’s only this ugly and this stupid because it was all a dream. No no no, it doesn’t work like that.
Even though North is getting my lowest rating of 1 star, its existence is interesting. First of all, it’s an example of the overt sexism in Hollywood. Last week I watched Elaine May’s Ishtar, which coincidentally had a similar budget to North ($50-ish million), but Ishtar actually made $2 million more at the box office than North did. Regardless, after Ishtar failed to live up to expectations, Elaine May was promptly drummed out of the industry, never to direct another major motion picture again (let the record show that Ishtar is a better movie than North, and it’s not close). As for Reiner? Despite losing tens of millions of dollars with North, his next film was The American President, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Benning, with a shooting budget of $62 million. Must be nice.
It’s also interesting that North has Bruce Willis in a supporting role at the absolute pinnacle of his career (I wonder how much of that $50 million budget was soaked up by his appearance). He’s great, too, in full movie star mode. He’s charming and handsome, but even the biggest star in the world couldn’t do a damn thing to save this movie from crashing and burning. I should also mention that Elijah Woods is good in the lead role. North is not his fault. I think he was a terribly underrated child actor, and I’m glad that he was good in North so he was able to shield himself from any possible blame for how bad it is.
Reflecting on Rob Reiner’s involvement in North, I think the film’s spiritual cinematic brother would have to be Steven Spielberg’s Hook. Sure, Hook is better (that’s not saying much), but they both represent the nadir of both directors’ careers and the films showed both men battling with their creative identities now that they were middle-aged fathers. The theses for both films are, “I love my kids, but I have lots of things to do, so they get mad when I don’t go to Little League games, but I buy them everything they want and they don’t understand how good they have it. So I’ll make this movie to absolve myself of being a bad parent while also implying that they could be a little more appreciative, the spoiled little brats.”
Not the most endearing or relatable message for regular movie goers. Hook is at least a mediocre kid’s movie. North is a fiasco.
