Recasting Couch
Michelle Pfeiffer as Carolyn, with Richard Gere replacing Martin Mull's boss to match; Meryl Streep as Carolyn
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:41:05Read transcript
- Terry Garr is called not good, not really a good actress, in a part that is interesting in the right hands and which she is not interested in exploring; the defense offered is that the script gives her little material.
- She could have played it sexier or more mom-ish, but the character is hard to describe: not really a mom, throwing the kids away for an hour, showing up frazzled, never asking about them or her husband until he gains weight and she throws darts, leaving the question of what is supposed to be likable about her.
- A millennial brain trained that women should be ambitious says she should get on the plane after convincing a guy to spend $12 million, yet the film sets up a recession and a layoff and then treats it as no big deal; if she is ambitious, it is never clear in the first hour, so the character is undercooked in both script and performance, and she has no chemistry with Keaton, who has more with Angelian (as transcribed).
- It is hard to believe she becomes successful at work since she seems like a clueless dipshit, going from two years of advertising experience and years at home to a high-powered executive, which is not how the workplace treats women after kids.
- Michelle Pfeiffer is the replacement: it changes the whole dynamic and makes it interesting, but then the creep must be recast too, since Martin Mull is no threat to her, so Richard Gere; there are five more interesting versions of this film, and the Pfeiffer version ends with the mom leaving the family or having an affair while the husband watches soap operas.
- Jack should have been much madder when Martin Mo (as transcribed) answers Carolyn's hotel phone in front of his friend and the kids, which is never resolved, and Carolyn finding Joan lying on her own bed is waved off too easily; Pfeiffer, queen of the 80s, 90s and 2000s, looks fantastic on the Maleficent 2 press tour.
- There is a reason Terry Garr's career never exploded through the 80s, although she is good in Young Frankenstein and great in Tootsie; the frustration is that Tootsie Terry Garr is a character while this is only a sitcom mom, with Keaton given the fun things to do.
- Meryl Streep is offered as one more idea, a fun part since she did weighty movies in the 80s, but she brings guilt and shame wherever she goes and would need a scene crying over missing Bobby's violin recital, which one host wanted and the other did not.
- A parent who missed seven soccer games and a graduation during four weeks on the road at the NBA playoffs says the film never taps into that; the other host's mother, a successful lawyer who traveled, felt guilty, whereas this character does not care about her children at all, and Halloween, the best day for kids apart from birthdays, is the proof, though the $12 million pitch is conceded as a reason she has to be there.