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Mrs. Doubtfire

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Mrs. Doubtfire
File:MrsDoubtfireMoviePoster.jpg
Mrs. Doubtfire theatrical poster
Directed byChris Columbus
Written byAnne Fine (novel),
Randi Mayem Singer
Leslie Dixon (screenplay)
StarringRobin Williams
Sally Field
Pierce Brosnan
Harvey Fierstein
Music byHoward Shore
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release dates
November 24, 1993
Running time
125 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Mrs. Doubtfire is an Academy Award-winning 1993 comedy film based on the novel Alias Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine. It was directed by Chris Columbus and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

Popularity

This film is number 39 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies and number 10 on Five's Greatest Ever Comedy Movies. It is also number 67 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Funniest American Movies.[1] It won an Academy Award for Best Makeup in 1994.

Plot

Outline

The story takes place in the city of San Francisco. Robin Williams plays Daniel Hillard, an out-of-work voice actor with extraordinary imitative skills, whose interior decorator spouse Miranda (played by Sally Field) wants a divorce. The breaking point is a birthday party Daniel throws for their twelve year old son Christopher behind Miranda's back, because she said he couldn't have a party due to his bad grades. It includes a petting zoo and twenty children running around the Hilliard household. Since Daniel has no steady source of income (as Miranda was the main breadwinner of the family), Miranda gets primary custody of their three children (Lydia, Chris and Natalie) and Daniel has only limited visitation rights. The news is crushing to Daniel, who adores his children.

File:Mrs. Doubtfire.jpg
Mrs Doubtfire

When Daniel learns Miranda intends to place an advertisement for a housekeeper, he requests to pick them up from school and spend time with them. The children are receptive, but Miranda nixes the idea. Daniel sabotages the ad Miranda wrote so that he was the only one who could apply. He calls Miranda a number of times, disguising his voice while pretending to be an unsuitable applicant. He finally presents the perfect applicant - a 60 year old Scottish woman with years of experience, giving the name "Mrs. Doubtfire" after reading the news headline "Police Doubt Fire Was Accidental". With the cosmetics skills of his gay brother, his brother's partner, and his own acting talent, Daniel goes to the Hillard residence as Euphegenia Doubtfire. He takes advantage of knowing his family's passions, bringing up storytelling to his youngest daughter Natalie, and soccer to Chris, and is quickly offered the job.

As Mrs. Doubtfire, Daniel is able to see his children every day, giving him the opportunity to be the firm father figure that he wasn't before the divorce. He initially has the children doing chores and homework, but still finds time to join them in their favorite activities; including reading stories, soccer, bike rides. The difference shows in the three children, and Miranda remarks one night that something about Mrs. Doubtfire is very familiar.

Ending

Daniel's cover is blown when Chris walks in on him standing at the toilet; he then explains the situation to the two elder children, explaining that Natalie would not be able to keep such a big secret. Both children are happy to have their father back in their lives and so eagerly agree to keep up the pretense.

Daniel's double life ends when his two personalities are forced to come together. The CEO of the television studio where Daniel works as a shipping clerk sees him clowning with toy dinosaurs and is impressed enough to schedule a dinner meeting to hear his ideas. Miranda then invites Mrs. Doubtfire to dinner with her new boyfriend Stuart, and the Hillards, at the same time and the same restaurant as his business dinner. Daniel cannot cancel on either, so he changes clothes in the bathroom while going back and forth between his boss and his family. Intending to get revenge on Stuart, Daniel sneaks into the restaurant kitchen and adds to Stuart's prepared dish cayenne pepper, to which Stuart is allergic. Upon consuming his food, Stuart begins to choke, forcing a guilty Daniel, under the Mrs. Doubtfire guise, to perform abdominal thrusts on him to avert his death. During a particularly rough thrust, Daniel's mask is partially ripped off, revealing his true identity. Miranda is shocked to learn that her beloved housekeeper is really her ex-husband.

In family court, Daniel acts as his own attorney and confesses his need to be with his children, but the judge finds Daniel's behavior disturbing, and custody is awarded solely to Miranda. She and the children all miss Daniel, and one day they see Aunt Euphegenia's House, a new children's TV show of which Daniel (as Mrs. Doubtfire) is the star. This evidence leads Miranda to renegotiate the terms of custody with Daniel, and, although there are lingering hard feelings between the two of them, they agree to stop arguing and work together for the sake of their children and come to terms with an amicable joint custody arrangement. Miranda will not seek a housekeeper/caretaker while she is at work in the afternoons, instead arranging for the children to spend that time with Daniel. The film concludes with Miranda watching an episode of Aunt Euphegenia's House that features advice to children of divorced parents, saying that no matter what type of family living arrangement children have, love will maintain the bond.

Proposed alternate ending

According to Williams, the studio had wanted the parents to be reunited in the final reel, but he, Field, and Columbus resisted this, thinking it too unrealistic and likely to give false hope to the children of divorced parents.

Cast

Accent

The character Mrs. Doubtfire claims to be from England in the movie, but she speaks with a mostly Scottish accent throughout the film. However, Stu (Pierce Brosnan) does say to Mrs. Doubtfire (Robin Williams) that her accent sounds "a little muddled", as he, having a home in London, knows what a proper English accent should sound like (Mrs. Doubtfire returns the comment with "Well, so is your tan."). Therefore, Mrs. Doubtfire's accent is hardly English-sounding, and the movie does make a point of this. In the Director's Commentary on the DVD of the film, Chris Columbus tells of a scene that was improvised by Williams and Brosnan but was cut from the film. The scene began with Brosnan's character suggesting that Mrs. Doubtfire's accent was "muddled". Brosnan then suggested places in Scotland as to where Mrs. Doubtfire was from and as he said the place names, the Doubtfire accent became thicker and thicker becoming an unintelligible Scottish drawl by the end of the scene. It was cut because Columbus felt that it spoiled the Doubtfire illusion.

Box Office

The film grossed $219,195,243 in the United States, and $222,000,000 elsewhere, grossing a total of $441,195,243 worldwide.

Sequel

Mrs. Doubtfire 2 was due to be a sequel to the 1993 box office hit. Writing began in 2005 by Bonnie Hunt (Cheaper by the Dozen, Cars, Jumanji). Robin Williams was set to return in disguise as an old nanny like in the first movie. Due to problems with the script, re-writing began in early 2006 as Robin Williams was allegedly unhappy with the plot. The film was expected to be released in late 2007, but following further script problems the sequel was declared "scrapped" in mid-2006.

Recently in an interview for Newsday, Williams said the movie's sequel was indefinitely scrapped. Stating his reasons, he said, "The script they had just didn't work."[citation needed]

Apparently, the sequel's story involved Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire moving close to his daughter's college so he could keep an eye on her.

On December 5, 2006, during an interview with BBC Radio 1 by DJ Edith Bowman, Williams said that if it's not going to be done right, then it's not worth doing and that there won't be a sequel with him in it. However, the character might return in some form some day in the future. The interview doesn't seem to have been recorded but was posted online almost immediately.[2]

The film was classed as "stalled" for a brief period, but it now seems that the project will not occur and has even been removed from the IMDb website.

Fox Universal recently accepted a draft script from up and coming screen-writer Craig Crawford for a horror sequel where Mrs.Doubtfire avenges her families death. Its currently in the pre-production stage.

References in other media

  • Mrs. Doubtfire appears briefly in the animated Disney film Aladdin and the King of Thieves as one of the shapes the Genie (voiced by Williams) briefly takes.
  • In Canada, during its later cinema showings, the film was dropped down to a PG rating.
  • On The Simpsons episode "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", Marge has a mental breakdown and decides to hire a nanny by holding auditions. Before deciding to hire Sherry Bobbins, there is one candidate, who in the middle of the interview, Homer notices a similarity and comments: "Wait a minute, Marge. I saw Mrs. Doubtfire. This is a man in drag!"
  • The character Mrs. Featherbottom in Arrested Development was inspired by Mrs. Doubtfire.
  • The Chaser's War on Everything did a parody of Mrs. Doubtfire with Adolf Hitler being forced to dress up as a housekeeper in order to see his kids. In the parody, Hitler's wife is Eva Braun and the director of the film is Leni Riefenstahl. Hitler is portrayed as an incompetent housekeeper such as when he leaves the gas on which is a reference to his methods of gassing prisoners in the concentration camps.
  • The Bollywood movie Chachi 420 is a remake of Mrs Doubtfire.
  • The Kollywood movie Avvai Shanmughi is a remake of Mrs Doubtfire in TamilLanguage Starring Kamal Hassan and Meena.
  • Towards the end of the first episode of Charmed you can see Prue holding a newspaper that reads "Police Doubt Fire was Accidental", the same newspaper that Daniel used to come up with a name.
  • In an episode of Beavis and Butt-head, Beavis notices Robin Williams making a cameo in a music video and exclaims "Whoa, check it out, it's Mrs. Doubt-FIRE!". Because he is a pyromaniac, he tends to emphasize the word "fire" a lot, and it is no exception in this case.
  • In an episode of Lizzie Mcguire, the family needs a baby-sitter for the night. In response, the dad asks, "Where's Mrs. Doubtfire when you need her?"

References

  1. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs". American Film Institute. Retrieved 2007-06-02.
  2. ^ Brunton, Richard (2006-12-05). "Williams says no Mrs Doubtfire 2". Filmstalker. Retrieved 2007-06-02.

See also

Preceded by Golden Globe: Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
1993 		Succeeded by
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