''Funny Farm'' is a 1988 American
comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...
starring
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (; born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He became a key cast member in the first season of ''Saturday Night Live'', where his recurring ''Weekend Update'' segment became a staple of the ...
and
Madolyn Smith. The film was
adapted
In biology, adaptation has three related meanings. Firstly, it is the dynamic evolutionary process of natural selection that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness. Secondly, it is a state reached by the po ...
from a 1985 comedic novel of the
same name by
Jay Cronley
Jay Cronley (November 9, 1943 – February 26, 2017) was an American newspaper columnist for the ''Tulsa World'' and the author of many works of humorous fiction, including ''Fall Guy'', ''Good Vibes'', ''Quick Change'', and ''Funny Farm''. Cronl ...
. The movie was filmed on location in Vermont, mostly in
Townshend, Vermont
Townshend is a New England town, town in Windham County, Vermont, Windham County, Vermont, United States. The town was named for the Townshend family, powerful figures in British politics. The population was 1,291 at the 2020 United States Census, ...
. It was the final film directed by
George Roy Hill
George Roy Hill (December 20, 1921 – December 27, 2002) was an American film director. He is most noted for directing such films as ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' (1969) and ''The Sting'' (1973), both starring Paul Newman and Robert Re ...
.
Plot
Andy Farmer (Chase) is a
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
sports writer who moves with his wife, Elizabeth (Smith) to the seemingly charming town of Redbud,
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
, so he can write a novel. They do not get along well with the residents, and other quirks arise such as being given exorbitant funeral bills for a long-dead man buried on their land years before they acquired the house.
Marital troubles soon arise from the quirkiness of Redbud as well as the fact that Elizabeth was critical of Andy's
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
, while writing her own manuscripts for children's books. Andy's publisher stops into town to personally see the manuscript of the novel after letters informing him of his deadline go unanswered. To avoid having to return the advance that the publisher gave him, Andy takes one of Elizabeth's manuscripts and passes it off as his own. After Elizabeth receives a call from Andy's publisher praising the work on "his children's book", she leaves Andy out of anger.
They soon decide to
divorce
Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...
and sell their home. To expedite the sale, the Farmers offer the town's residents a $15,000 donation to Redbud, and $50 cash each if they help make a good impression on their prospective home buyers. To that end, the citizens remake Redbud into a perfect
Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell (February 3, 1894 – November 8, 1978) was an American painter and illustrator. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of Culture of the United States, the country's culture. Roc ...
-style town. Their charade dazzles a pair of prospective buyers, who make the Farmers an offer on the house; however, Andy declines to sell, realizing that he genuinely enjoys small-town living.
He and Elizabeth decide to stay together in Redbud, much to the chagrin of the locals, who are now angry that they lost their promised money. Though the mayor does not hold the Farmers liable for the $15,000, as the sale of their house did not occur, Andy decides to pay everyone in Redbud their $50, which helps improve his standing among the townspeople. The film ends with Andy taking a job as a sports writer for the Redbud newspaper, and Elizabeth, now pregnant with their first child, having written multiple children's stories.
Cast
*
Chevy Chase
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (; born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He became a key cast member in the first season of ''Saturday Night Live'', where his recurring ''Weekend Update'' segment became a staple of the ...
as Andy Farmer
*
Madolyn Smith as Elizabeth Farmer
*
Kevin O'Morrison
Kevin O'Morrison (May 25, 1916 – December 11, 2016) was an American playwright and actor. He played the lead actor in the TV series ''Charlie Wild, Private Detective'' (1950–51) for the first seven episodes. The series began on CBS Television, ...
as Sheriff Ledbetter
*
Alice Drummond
Alice Elizabeth Drummond (née Ruyter, May 21, 1928 – November 30, 2016) was an American actress. A veteran Off-Broadway performer, she was nominated in 1970 for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance as Mrs ...
as Ethel Dinges
*
Mike Starr as Crocker
*
Glenn Plummer
Glenn E. Plummer (born August 18, 1961) is an American film and television actor best known as Timmy Rawlins in '' ER'' (1994-2007), and Vic Trammel in ''Sons of Anarchy'' (2008-2009).
Biography
Plummer was born in Richmond, California.
Career ...
as Mickey
*
Joseph Maher
Joseph Sylvester Maher (29 December 1933 – 17 July 1998) was an Irish actor, playwright, and occasionally theatre director. He was best known for his roles in the comedies of Joe Orton. He received three Tony Award nominations for his roles in ...
as Michael Sinclair
*
Bill Fagerbakke
William Fagerbakke ( ; born October 4, 1957) is an American actor. He voices Patrick Star in the animated series ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' and played Michael "Dauber" Dybinski on the sitcom ''Coach (TV series), Coach''. He also appeared in 12 ep ...
as Lon Criterion
*
Nicholas Wyman as Dirk Criterion
*
William Newman as Gus Lotterhand
*
Kevin Conway as Crum Petree
*
Brad Sullivan
Bradford Ernest Sullivan (November 18, 1931 – December 31, 2008) was an American character actor on film, stage and television. He was best known for playing the killer Cole in ''The Sting'', hockey goon Mo Wanchuk in ''Slap Shot'', mobster Geo ...
as Brock
*
William Duell
Darwin William Duell (born George William Duell; August 30, 1923 – December 22, 2011) was an American actor and singer. He was known for his roles as Andrew McNair in the musical ''1776'', Jim Sefelt in the 1975 film ''One Flew Over the Cuck ...
as the old character
*
Jack Gilpin
John Mitchell "Jack" Gilpin (born May 31, 1951) is an American actor. He currently portrays Church the Butler in HBO's historical drama series ''The Gilded Age''. He is the father of actress Betty Gilpin.
Early life
Gilpin was born on May 31 ...
as Bud Culbertson
*Caris Corfman as Betsy Culbertson
Production
Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam said he "loved" the book. "It was exactly the kind of movie I always wanted to write,” said Boam. “It needed a lot of work because it wasn’t told in the fashion that could be filmed, but I loved the idea of working with Chevy. He was a comedy hero of mine and still is.”
Boam says the tone of the film changed from what he expected when director
George Roy Hill
George Roy Hill (December 20, 1921 – December 27, 2002) was an American film director. He is most noted for directing such films as ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'' (1969) and ''The Sting'' (1973), both starring Paul Newman and Robert Re ...
signed. "George wanted to do a much classier version than I ever imagined it to be," said Boam. "I imagined it to be a little cruder, more low-brow humor, rougher and more like the movies Chevy was doing at the time, but George was a classy guy and he wasn’t going to do that. He does what he does. He made the movie classy, and I think a lot of Chevy’s fans were let down because it wasn’t as raucous and vulgar as they might have expected."
Reception
''Funny Farm'' received mixed reviews at the time of its release. On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has a 62% rating, based on 21 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10.
Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...
, in his review for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', called the film "good-natured even when it's not funny," and went on to say that its best jokes are recycled from other, better, films. In a negative review for the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', Michael Wilmington said "''Funny Farm'' – a weak-fish-out-of-water comedy about a New York City couple who see their rural paradise turned into a rustic hell–is a movie with a doubly deceptive title. This movie isn't about a farm, and it isn't very funny, either." In a staff review, ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' said, "As pleasant yuppie comedies go, this is about par."
However, film critics
Roger Ebert and
Gene Siskel were strong champions of the film, praising it on ''
The Oprah Winfrey Show
''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Produced ...
'' and ''
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' was an American late-night talk show hosted by Johnny Carson on NBC, the third iteration of the ''Tonight Show'' franchise. The show debuted on October 1, 1962, and aired its final episode on May 22, ...
''. Ebert called the film a "small miracle," while Siskel said it was "the best film Chase has made" and compared it to the films of
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges (; born Edmund Preston Biden; August 29, 1898 – August 6, 1959) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and film director. In 1941, he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the film '' The Great McGinty'' (1940), h ...
.
The film grossed $25 million on a $19 million budget, making it a modest box office success, but was seen as an overall disappointment especially considering Chevy Chase's popularity as a comic actor in the 1980s with a handful of box office hits. It was released during a very busy summer movie season. The Tom Hanks comedy ''
Big
Big or BIG may refer to:
* Big, of great size or degree
Film and television
* ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks
* ''Big!'', a Discovery Channel television show
* ''Richard Hammond's Big'', a television show present ...
'', now considered a classic comedy, opened the very same day and became one of the year's highest grossing films while ''
Crocodile Dundee II
''Crocodile Dundee II'' is a 1988 action comedy film and the second of the ''Crocodile Dundee'' film series. It is a sequel to ''Crocodile Dundee'' (1986) and was followed by ''Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles'' (2001). Actors Paul Hogan and Lin ...
'' was in its second week of release and also became one of the year's biggest hits. Other releases throughout the summer including ''
Coming to America
''Coming to America'' is a 1988 American romantic comedy film directed by John Landis and based on a story originally created by Eddie Murphy, who also stars in the lead role. The film also co-stars Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones, Shari Hea ...
'', ''
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' is a 1988 American live-action/animated comedy mystery film directed by Robert Zemeckis, produced by Frank Marshall and Robert Watts, and loosely adapted by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman from Gary K. Wolf's 19 ...
'', and ''
Die Hard
''Die Hard'' is a 1988 American action film directed by John McTiernan, with a screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. Based on the 1979 novel '' Nothing Lasts Forever'', by Roderick Thorp, it stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Al ...
'' all were very high-grossing films giving ''Funny Farm'' a slim chance of high box office results in comparison.
With the success of ''
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
''National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation'' is a 1989 American Christmas comedy film and the third installment in ''National Lampoon'' magazine's ''Vacation'' film series. ''Christmas Vacation'' was directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik, written and co ...
'' the following year, ''Funny Farm'' did eventually gain a cult following and is now regarded by critics and Chevy Chase fans as one of his best films.
Then-
U.S. President
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...
Ronald Reagan viewed this film at
Camp David on June 11, 1988.
See also
*
List of Christmas films
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Funny Farm (Film)
1988 films
1988 comedy films
American comedy films
Films scored by Elmer Bernstein
Films about writers
Films based on American novels
Films directed by George Roy Hill
Films set in New York City
Films set in Vermont
Films shot in Vermont
Films shot in New York City
Films with screenplays by Jeffrey Boam
Warner Bros. films
1980s English-language films
1980s American films