Review of Firstborn (1984) by Danielle S — 03 Apr 2012

Michael Apted directs a heavy-handed suburban sitcom about a harried divorced mom and her two children. Wendy Livingston (Teri Garr) is alone raising her 15-year-old high school son Jake (Christopher Collet) and his adolescent brother Brian (Corey Haim) after divorcing lawyer hubby Alan--someone she still loves.

Hubby remarries and on the rebound Wendy meets security system salesman Sam, and has him move into her comfortable suburban home over the objections raised by her children. Sam turns out to be a small-time cocaine dealer with big plans to own a restaurant and get his own surveillance business.

All he needs is capital. The children spot him immediately as a big-talking phony despite his trying to buy them off with gifts, and family life in the once happy household becomes a bummer. Sam is an abusive surrogate father and a nasty asshole, but Wendy digs him and ignores the pleas of her children to ditch this good for nothing.

The performances are strong, the plot moves with a compelling simplicity, and the dialogue shows a good ear for the way the movie's different kinds of characters might really speak. The movie had been so good that somehow it didn't have the right to evade all the issues it had raised and just turn into a suburban thriller.