There are comedies of guilty affirmation — about overworked,
and thus insensitive, parents — and there are comedies about omnipotent wish
fulfillment, and now there’s Adam Sandler’s Click, a middling mash-up of various well-tested comedic
formulas that’s rooted in a familial maturation not fully evidenced in the
movie’s trailer and television advertising campaign.
The story centers around Michael Newman (Sandler),
a workaholic architect who’s so caught up in striving to give his family — wife
Donna (Kate Beckinsale), young son Ben (Joseph Castanon) and daughter Samantha
(Tatum McCann) — the material things that he didn’t have growing up that he
often finds himself on the outside of his domestic life looking in. Constantly
striving to please his boss (David Hasselhoff) and win a crucial promotion,
though, has taken its toll on Michael’s patience and health. When his
frustration over a series of petty incidents involving a remote control boils
over, Michael heads out late one night to buy a universal remote. At a Bed Bath
& Beyond, he stumbles across an eccentric employee named Morty (Christopher
Walken) who bestows upon him an experimental prototype gadget that allows
Michael to exert godly all-powerful control over the mundanities of life.
rush of power, fast-forwarding through commutes to work, obligatory dinners
with his parents (Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner), arguments with Donna and the
like. He even uses it to settle a few scores with the smarmy neighbor’s kid (in
a winking shout-out to Billy
Madison’s O’Doyle family). But before Michael knows it, the
remote is anticipating his choices and programming itself, a la a Tivo
wish-list. After he decides to flash forward a couple months to the previously
mentioned promotion, Michael finds himself hurtling through time against his
will, and stuck with a personal life dinged by regret and disaster.
Early on, Sandler flaunts his typical gleeful
mania, but the film also injects some of Punch-Drunk Love’s swallowed, tears-of-a-clown
melancholy. While Beckinsale isn’t required to do much more than show up, look
pretty, halfheartedly argue and flirt a bit, Click dials up the sweeping, familial emotionalism to an
intriguing degree, courtesy of Rupert Gregson-Williams’ maudlin score and other
musical choices that highlight the poignancy of Michael’s increasing despair.
That the movie is rooted in family isn’t a surprise in and of itself, given
Sandler’s well-documented grandmother fetish and dedicated loyalties, on
display in everything from his solo comedy CDs and Happy Gilmore to later work
like Big Daddy and Mr. Deeds. His own
impending and subsequently realized fatherhood, however, has obviously colored
and matured Sandler’s take on life, and Click reflects that.
The film isn’t “dark” per se, but it is being sold,
in a bit of an end-around, as a much broader comedy than it really is. Click’s grab at Bruce Almighty-type,
Everyman omnipotence is unsurprising, given that it’s also penned by that
film’s writers, Mark O’Keefe and Steve Koren. From Michael’s first interaction
with the magical remote up through two clarifying return trips to Morty, Click hits its
expected beats in mostly winning fashion. When the remote mimics DVD menu
options, Michael flits back to various adolescent highlights, witnesses his
“making of,” explores different language and aspect ratio options for his own
amusement and even listens to James Earl Jones’ audio commentary track on his
life.
the movie slowly morphs into an earnest vehicle for the affected espousal of
platitudes. Sandler plays these dramatic scenes fairly well, and special
make-up effects designer Rick Baker provides gives the movie an extra card up
its sleeve. Still, while these moments are deeply felt, the jumps to and fro
seem arbitrary. When the compulsory leap back to learned, It’s a Wonderful Life-style
illumination occurs, it feels a bit like, well, flipping on the television and
catching the moving but emotionally partitioned conclusion of a movie you
haven’t necessarily seen before but have already heard about through friends. (Sony/Revolution, PG-13, 106 mins.)