The Parenting review
A haunted house comedy that rarely works as either.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
The Parenting
Directed by Craig Johnson
Written by Kent Sublette
Starring Nik Dodani, Brandon Flynn, Brian Cox, Edie Falco, Lisa Kudrow, Dean Norris, Vivian Bang and Parker Posey
The Parenting Review
Like the Hulu release Control Freak that we’ll be reviewing tomorrow…there was more than a little bit of a concern with The Parenting being dropped on Max in March. Streamers like to line up their sparse horror related originals for some Spooky Season notice. The Parenting, a horror/comedy (in theory) with a lot of known actors on board fits what a streaming service is looking to peddle every October. Seeing it unceremoniously dumped in mid-March…well…it feels like trouble was afoot. It was. The Parenting isn’t much of a comedy. It’s even less of a horror movie.
Rohan (Nik Dodani) plans to propose to his boyfriend Josh (Brandon Flynn) during a weekend getaway with all their parents. Unfortunately, the house is haunted. Wacky misunderstandings…possession…not much else really…happens while the group tries to…survive? I guess? The stakes never feel incredibly high if we’re being honest.
What The Parenting has going for it…what it would be sold on if Max had tried to sell it…is a cast full of well-known actors. Brian Cox, Edie Falco, Dean Norris and Lisa Kudrow play the somewhat titular parents. Parker Posey rents the house to Rohan and Josh. That’s a lot of quality names for a movie you probably didn’t know existed and will forget about as soon as you finish watching it.
I can’t even sit here and tell you that the cast phones it in. They have very little to work with. Kudrow nails a running bit of cursing and explaining that’s not the kind of person she is…the closest that The Parenting gets to comedy. Brian Cox gets possessed which gives him more to do than the others…but The Parenting doesn’t have anything to say about possessions or horror or anything like that. I genuinely don’t remember one thing Dean Norris said in this movie. Edie Falco doesn’t fare much better. None of this is criticism of the actors or their performances. These are well-respected talents for good reasons. They’ve each been a major part of cultural programs. Now…they find themselves stuck in The Parenting.
Parker Posey gets less screen time than anyone mentioned above. As usual…she manages to come out of this movie clean. It isn’t the first time she’s managed to shine with dull material. I’m sure it won’t be the last. She really can make anything work.
When the story wants to focus on the awkward interactions between the parents and their children…it has almost zero juice. It would flop on its own as a comedy even without the misguided supernatural elements. As a possession movie…or a haunted house movie…there’s an equal amount of nothing there. The Parenting combined two substandard ideas into one substandard film. I can’t imagine how bad this would have been had it not cast so many quality actors. It’s incredible how few laughs it musters.
The awkwardly unfunny moments that are meant to be comedy inevitably give way to the demonic/haunted house subplot that is meant to be horror. An unearned attempt at emotional resolution follows during a climax only partially redeemed by the return of Parker Posey to the screen. You rarely see a film fail to be two things as completely as The Parenting manages to.
The bar is low for direct to streaming films. Look at that Millie Bobby Brown/Chris Pratt dud Netflix just dropped. It’s probably even lower when you’re talking about Max…who cancel finished projects for tax credits. Warner Bros. Discovery is run by an anti-art, creative illiterate who destroys everything he touches. Even by that standard…The Parenting is a disappointment. There are too many talented people in front of the camera for this light-hearted project to be this much of a forgettable slog. I get why they dropped it in March. What I don’t understand is how it wasn’t shelved completely.
Scare Value
Given the exciting list of names among the film’s cast…you’re likely to walk away from The Parenting more than a little disappointed. It’s rarely funny. Outside of an effective moment or two…it’s not trying to be scary either. The plot itself is nothing more than a paper-thin premise to draw the characters together. With the talent in front of the camera…a better script might have turned The Parenting into something more than the sum of its parts instead of less than the sum of its talent.
1.5/5
The Parenting Link
Streaming on Max
