“Bedtime Stories“ –
Adam Sandler, Keri Russell, Courtney Cox Arquette
This was fun and Sandler is at his best as the underdog. Keri Russell wasn’t given enough meat in this role, but then it isn’t a meaty film. It is a kid flick that this grown up had to watch, guess I had a lack of fairy tales in my childhood and still looking for happy endings! I also related well as it was set in the hotel business and that’s something I know about having spent four years in the frozen tundra of Upstate NY attending Cornell for just such a major. Sandler is great with kids as he is really just a big kid himself, even if he is irreverent and unruly! Russell adds softness to the film that is welcome without being stiff. Pierce is deliciously dreadful. Cox Arquette has never worked for me on the big screen; I sort of trapped her in Friends forever, oops. The premise is simple, father loses business to client, and client promises that father’s son will get to run it one day and reneges on that promise. As business booms the client becomes stranger and stranger (think Howard Hughes, the Disney version) and plans to tear down the local school to build his flagship property, a fight ensues, kids and education vs. crass capitalism. In the midst of all this, Sandler tells bedtime stories to his nephew and niece and then the stories come true each day, talk about a wild ride! Fun for the big kid in you.
