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Cheaper by the dozen (2003)


Cheaper by the dozen (2003)


7/10


Starring
Steve Martin
Bonnie Hunt
Tom Welling
Piper Perabo
Hillary Duff


Directed by Shawn Levy


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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