Cheaper by the
Dozen took me by surprise (or, better still, did take me by surprise) because
the movie turned out to be very good and memorable. I recall seeing it back
then and wondering how they were going to manage the screen time with a family
of fourteen people. The director, Shawn Levy (of Night at
the Museum series), did it. He did it in such a way that if he had
tried to develop anything from the solo perspective of one character, the
others would have drowned. What he did instead was find ways of dragging the
remaining thirteen into the life of anyone in the family going through
something.
The one thing
that made me watch this movie back then was the leads. Steve Martin, for me,
was always a funny character to watch on film, and Bonnie Hunt was still fresh
in my mind from the 1995 movie Jumanji
with Robin Williams. When I was young, Jumanji was a staple, watched
weekly for many years.
The movie is
based on a somewhat real-life account of the Gilbreth family, written as a
semi-autobiography by Frank and Ernestine Gilbreth (siblings in the Gilbreth
family). This movie is a remake of a 1950 film of the same name. Since I
haven’t seen that version, I won’t compare them here.
We meet the
Baker family, with parents Tom (Martin) and Kate (Hunt). Tom coaches college
football and is overjoyed when he gets a job offer in another state to coach
the college team, which will require him to move his family there. Although the
children don’t want to leave their home, the parents agree, and the move is
set. Kate raised the couple’s twelve children, and from her experience raising
them, she wrote a book that was picked up for publication.
Now that the
publishing deal is set, Kate has to go on a promotional tour. Leaving home
isn’t something she does easily, as she’s a stay-at-home mom. Tom, not wanting
to ruin his wife’s dream of life outside of being a mother to twelve children,
encourages her to go and says he can handle the children.
Soon, we find
out that Tom wasn’t ready for the responsibility of raising twelve children,
and he also has to do this while excelling at his job.
The movie is
about how the couple navigates their lives while dealing with their children,
and that’s where all the comedy comes from.
It’s an okay
movie.
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