Mr. Mom
Encyclopedia
Mr. Mom is a 1983 American comedy-drama film directed by Stan Dragoti
Stan Dragoti
Stan Dragoti is an Albanian American film director, whose work includes the comedies Mr. Mom and Love at First Bite....

 and written by John Hughes about a stay-at-home dad. The film stars Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton
Michael John Douglas , better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice . Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's...

, Teri Garr
Teri Garr
-Early life:Garr was born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1947. Her father, Eddie Garr , was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road...

, Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Michael Tambor is an American actor, perhaps best known for his roles as George Bluth Sr. and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development and Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show.-Early life:...

, Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, and Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played Reverend Jim Ignatowski in the television series Taxi and more...

, and Martin Mull
Martin Mull
Martin Mull is an American actor who has starred in his own television sitcom and acted in prominent films. He is also a comedian, painter, and recording artist...

.

Plot

Michael Keaton
Michael Keaton
Michael John Douglas , better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice . Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's...

 and Teri Garr
Teri Garr
-Early life:Garr was born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1947. Her father, Eddie Garr , was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road...

 play Jack and Caroline Butler, a middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

 couple with three kids - Kenny, Alex, and Megan - living in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

 during the Early 1980s recession
Early 1980s recession
The early 1980s recession describes the severe global economic recession affecting much of the developed world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The United States and Japan exited recession relatively early, but high unemployment would continue to affect other OECD nations through at least 1985...

. Jack is the breadwinner while Caroline is a stay-at-home mom. He and his two friends, Larry and Stan, lose their engineering jobs at an automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 manufacturer. Though the auto industry is in a slump, they bet that he can get a job before Caroline, but he loses as she is hired by an ad agency and he has to stay at home with the kids.

With Caroline at work, Jack discovers he is clueless about how to manage a household. He falls into depression as his ego and the household fall apart, most infamously fighting with the vacuum cleaner, which was nicknamed "Jaws
Jaws (film)
Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...

" by Caroline, while Alex gives Megan a can of chili unbeknownst to him, and when she eats the whole thing, the inevitable happens.

He begins socializing a lot with the housewives in his neighborhood, sharing poker games and workout routines with them. Caroline struggles with being back in the workforce and successfully pitches an innovative idea to a hard-to-please client. The president of the company is pleased and wants her to fly to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 to help shoot the commercial.

In the meantime, Jack has snapped out of his depression, getting the house and kids under control. His former employer invites him back for a chance to interview again for his old job, but he finds that his former boss, Jinx Latham (Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Tambor
Jeffrey Michael Tambor is an American actor, perhaps best known for his roles as George Bluth Sr. and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development and Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show.-Early life:...

), betrayed his reputation in favor of his own so as to make himself look good in the process. He lectures them on such dirty practices and storms out, but not before threatening Jinx with a knockout punch should he ever speak sharply to Alex again (who had interrupted the meeting to see what was taking so long). The neighborhood housewives surprise him unpleasantly with a visit to a strip club (with male strippers) to take his mind off of things.

Throughout the film, both Jack and Caroline find themselves fending off the lascivious advances of others. Her boss, Ron Richardson (Martin Mull
Martin Mull
Martin Mull is an American actor who has starred in his own television sitcom and acted in prominent films. He is also a comedian, painter, and recording artist...

), tries to convince her to leave Jack and marry him instead, while in his case, one of their mutual friends, Joan (Ann Jillian
Ann Jillian
Ann Jillian is an American actress, who started acting at age 10. Her career reached its zenith in the 1980s, with her best-known role being that of waitress Cassie Cranston on the sitcom It's a Living.-Early life and career:...

), tries to seduce him in a less direct manner.

Caroline leaves her family on Halloween to go on a business trip. After a successful commercial shoot in Los Angeles, she relaxes in her hotel bathtub; Ron takes this opportunity to sneak into her room with champagne. Back home, Jack tries calling her at this exact moment so the kids could talk to her, but Ron picks up the phone instead. He hangs up, therefore Jack is thinking she is having an affair with him. She, not knowing what has just transpired via the phone, confronts him and fends off his attempts to seduce her; she ends up punching him in the nose and quitting her job.

The next day dawns with a couple of household repair people in the home to fix a broken TV and spray for bugs
Pest control
Pest control refers to the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, usually because it is perceived to be detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy.-History:...

. Joan stops by and while Jack is upstairs in the bathroom. She makes herself at home in their bedroom. Realizing that she wants to sleep with him, Jack begins running through a list of reasons (numbered A-Z) why he should not have an affair with her. Caroline arrives home unexpectedly, surprising Joan on the bed, and after a confrontation of words, she leaves. Caroline takes her place on the bed. Jack, not realizing she is home, comes back to the bedroom. They talk over the misunderstandings that occurred concerning Ron and Joan's advances and reunite as a stronger couple.

Ron stops by the house, begging her to come back to his company, as the client has demanded that only she can properly handle his account. However, she expresses how much she missed spending time with her children. Jinx also comes begging for Jack to return to work. He had made too many cuts in his design team and is now in danger of losing his job. Alex says something to his father while Jinx is talking and he yells at him, at which point Jack makes good on his earlier promise and punches him in the face. Jack accepts his old job back with the demand being accepted that Larry and Stan will have theirs back.

As Jack and Caroline are sitting on the steps inside the home with the kids, with Jinx and Ron in the background talking with the TV repairwoman and exterminator, they are again a happy family. On the newly repaired TV, the viewer sees the commercial Caroline helped produce.

Cast

  • Michael Keaton
    Michael Keaton
    Michael John Douglas , better known by the stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor known for his early comedic roles, most notably his performance as the title character of Tim Burton's Beetlejuice . Keaton is also famous for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's...

     as Jack Butler
  • Teri Garr
    Teri Garr
    -Early life:Garr was born in Lakewood, Ohio in 1947. Her father, Eddie Garr , was a vaudeville performer, comedian and actor whose career peaked when he briefly took over the lead role in the Broadway drama Tobacco Road...

     as Caroline Butler
  • Jeffrey Tambor
    Jeffrey Tambor
    Jeffrey Michael Tambor is an American actor, perhaps best known for his roles as George Bluth Sr. and Oscar Bluth on Arrested Development and Hank Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show.-Early life:...

     as Jinx Latham
  • Christopher Lloyd
    Christopher Lloyd
    Christopher Allen Lloyd is an American actor. He is best known for playing Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family and Addams Family Values, and Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He played Reverend Jim Ignatowski in the television series Taxi and more...

     as Larry
  • Martin Mull
    Martin Mull
    Martin Mull is an American actor who has starred in his own television sitcom and acted in prominent films. He is also a comedian, painter, and recording artist...

     as Ron Richardson
  • Taliesin Jaffe
    Taliesin Jaffe
    Taliesin Jaffe is an American voice director, script writer, voice actor, and former child actor.Jaffe was born in Los Angeles, California. He is known for directing and writing many English language anime titles for New Generation Pictures, most notably R.O.D the TV and Hellsing...

     as Kenny Butler
  • Frederick Koehler
    Frederick Koehler
    Frederick Koehler is an American actor best known for his role as Chip on Kate & Allie as well as Andrew Schillinger on the HBO drama Oz.- Film work :* Death Race 2 -- Lists* Death Race – Lists...

     as Alex Butler
  • Courtney and Brittany White as Megan Butler
  • Graham Jarvis
    Graham Jarvis
    Graham Jarvis was a Canadian character actor in US films and TV from the 1960s.Born in Toronto, Jarvis attended Williams College before moving to New York to pursue a career in theater...

     as Humphries
  • Miriam Flynn
    Miriam Flynn
    Miriam Flynn is an American voice actress and character actress. She is best known as Cousin Catherine in the National Lampoon's Vacation franchise. As a voice artist, she has been featured in The Land Before Time series, Taz-Mania as the title character's mother, Jean, Poil in The Spooktacular...

     as Annette
  • Ann Jillian
    Ann Jillian
    Ann Jillian is an American actress, who started acting at age 10. Her career reached its zenith in the 1980s, with her best-known role being that of waitress Cassie Cranston on the sitcom It's a Living.-Early life and career:...

     as Joan
  • Edie McClurg
    Edie McClurg
    Edie McClurg is an American character actress. She is known for her perky North Central dialect , common to persons from Middle America.-Career:...

     as Checkout lady
  • Patti Deutsch
    Patti Deutsch
    Patricia "Patti" Deutsch is a voice artist and comedic actress. In the 1970s she was a frequent panelist on Match Game.-Match Game:...

     as Deli girl

Critical reception

The film received mixed to positive reviews. Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...

 gave it 2.5 stars out of 4, stating "pleasant enough rehash of age-old sitcom premise," adding "likable stars make it palatable, but you've seen it all before."

Box office

Mr. Mom opened to limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....

 on July 22, 1983 with $947,197, earning the #13 spot that weekend. Upon its wide release
Wide release
Wide release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing nationally . Specifically, a movie is considered to be in wide release when it is on 600 screens or more in the United States and Canada.In the US, films holding an NC-17 rating almost never have a...

 on August 19, 1983, a month later, the film opened #3 with $4,279,384 behind Easy Moneys opening weekend and Risky Business
Risky Business
Risky Business is a 1983 American teen comedy-drama film written by Paul Brickman in his directorial debut. It stars Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. The hit film launched Cruise to stardom.-Plot:...

third.
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