Coincidentally, I'm just watching two comedies in a row with a similar theme. They are Failure To Launch and You, Me, and Dupree. They are both quite entertaining, though the first one is not exactly the most believable film I've seen.
The theme in common is not uncommon: somebody living with somebody, pretty much sponging off them, and it's a problem. In the first one it's about an adult man still living with his parents, and they are fed up. In the second one it's very immature friend moving into the house of his newly-wed friends "just for a couple of days", and totally taking over the house and not in a good way.
When I see such things, and I guess it kind of happens in real life too, I just don't get it. What's the problem, just throw his ass out! How can you let somebody walk all over you like that?
In Failure to Launch they might blame themselves for failing to teach him how to make it on his own. Maybe. If, to paraphrase Will Smith's character in MIB2, they throw his bum ass out, he might learn quickly enough how to fend for himself. I have known guys who lived with their parents into their 30s (but paid rent) and were not exactly losers on the level of Comic Book Guy, so sometimes it's hard to figure out.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen either movie, and probably never would see Failure because I can't stand Matthew McConaughey or Sarah Jessica Parker. Dupree I might watch because I think Owen Wilson is a very funny guy.
I sometimes wonder if it really happens, or if it's a comic extension of the sponger friend and giving friend.
ReplyDeleteIt depends how fast it happens as to how much of a problem it becomes. Someone who wheedles their way in are harder to usurp once they have both feet under the table. I had a friend who, over time, just seemed to need more and more. Finally we had words and it seems I was "the bad guy" the way he explained it to everyone else.
Anyway, yes this makes for good comedy, until you have enough and want to tell everyone in the show to just grow up...