Review of Splash (1984) by Edith N — 14 Mar 2009

I honestly don't remember what I thought of this the first time I saw it. The movie came out in 1984, and it can't have been much later than 1986 that I saw it. This is not like [i]Popeye[/i], where I have old, fond memories of the movie that have been utterly, utterly shattered. And, of course, I did like this somewhat better on second, adult viewing than I did [i]Popeye[/i]. It's the way things work sometimes, I guess. I note with some alarm that it was nominated for an Oscar, though I suppose the screenplay is pretty charming. Blessedly, both it and [i]Beverly Hills Cop[/i] lost to [i]Places in the Heart[/i], which I have not seen and which would have to work pretty hard to be better than [i]El Norte[/i]. At any rate, early Tom Hanks tends to hold appeal for me--I'm much happier to have seen this again than I would be to see [i]Angels and Demons[/i] this summer--but while this is better than [i]Mazes & Monsters[/i], it's no [i]Joe Versus the Volcano[/i].

One day, the Bauer family is on a boat off the coast of Cape Cod. Young Allen (David Kreps) jumps into the water, and he sees a girl (Shayla MacKarvich). He is quickly pulled back onto the boat, and he never sees her again. He grows up into Tom Hanks, who runs a produce market with his feckless brother, Freddie (John Candy). Freddie has been in and out of love his whole life; early in the movie, he delightedly announces that his letter got published in [i]Penthouse[/i]. He brought a girlfriend to one of his own wedding. Allen's girlfriend Victoria has just left him because he didn't love her. He goes to a coworker's wedding, and when he goes home, he is in utter despair. He goes back to Cape Cod, where he was happy, and the girl of his childhood (now Daryl Hannah) rescues him again. He goes back to Manhattan again, and the girl has followed him again. We know, though he does not, that she is a mermaid.

This is another movie wherein half the fun is Tom Hanks's bewilderment. It doesn't really matter that we know what's going on. All that's important is that he does not, that the film's events unfold to him in a fashion he does not quite understand. Even at the beginning, when we see him at his most stable, he is not in control. He runs the produce market with some efficiency, but his girlfriend is in the process of leaving him and has told him over the phone. He is not being given a chance to plead his case, as he is incredibly busy--he does not seem to have a reasonable second-in-command. Apparently, he does not trust anyone but himself, and the joy is that, in the end, he cannot trust himself, either.

I could have done without the feckless brother. The movie is 111 minutes long; a lot of the feckless brother stuff's being removed would have dropped it down to under 90. Probably considerably, unfortunately, so that may be why he's there. I think we might have safely done more with Walter Kornbluth (Eugene Levy) as a comic relief instead. Of course, I'm not much of a John Candy fan at the best of times, but it really doesn't do anything for me. I guess it's because I'm not a huge fan of the manchild most of the time, and that's who John Candy tends to play. He was a proto-Sandler, or perhaps Adam Sandler is the post-Candy, if you'd rather think of it that way.

This is one of two things that I think of when I think of Daryl Hannah. Oddly, much as I love the movie, the other is not [i]Roxanne[/i]; it always takes me a while to remember that she was in that. It's not even the whole chaining-herself-to-a-tree thing, though I eventually dug it out of my brain. No, what comes to mind is the time fifteen years ago that she spent with John F. Kennedy, Jr. She was in what is arguably one of the best sci-fi movies ever made (really, really not this movie), and she was in [i]Kill Bill[/i] (not that I've seen it, but in my head, she will be another blonde tied to another doomed Kennedy. I wonder what Rose would think about that.