The Addams Family

 

Starring: Anjelica Houston, Raul Julia, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci

Year of Release: 1991

Running Time: 99 minutes

I recently finished watching Wednesday, Netflix's hugely successful dark comedy drama series featuring Wednesday Addams and other characters from The Addams Family, based on the cartoon created by Charles Addams.  An aside: if you haven't watched it yet, do yourself a favor - it definitely lives up to the hype!  The series prompted me to revisit the OG Wednesday and her family in the 1991 film which I remember being delighted by as a child.  

From the start of the film, it is clear to the viewer that this is not your average family:  the corpses of dead relatives are kept in closets, children are encouraged to play with their squirming food in between torturing each other and creepy organ music (played by an equally creepy butler) fills the house while an energetic disembodied hand runs from around and communicates with everyone in the household.  Despite their eccentricities and disturbing tastes, their genuine love for one another makes them endearing, particularly the aforementioned Wednesday (played by a very young Christina Ricci), who is arguably the standout performance of the film.

The plot kicks off with the Addams family lawyer, Tully Alford, owing money to loan shark-slash-con artist, Abigail Craven.  Despite his best efforts, he has been unable to access the Addams family fortune in order to repay her.  However, he is inspired by how much Abigail's son, Gordon, resembles Gomez Addams' long lost brother, Fester, and devises a "fool-proof" plan for Gordon to impersonate Fester so that they can access the fortune.

A bald Gordon, with some heavy eye makeup, appears at an Addams family seance and Gomez welcomes him with open arms, believing him to be the brother he hasn't seen in 25 years.  Before long, he invites Fester to the vault where all kinds of treasures are tucked away.  But when Fester can't remember certain things from his past, the family becomes suspicious about his identity.  Indeed, Morticia gives him a not-so-subtle warning about what happens to those who cross the Addams family.

Gordon is supposed to break into the vault while the family is attending the children's school play but he decides to go to the school to help the children but adding some gushing fake blood to make their scene a little more exciting.  It is clear that he is becoming attached to the family, and the children in particular but his scheming mother (pretending to be his German psychiatrist with the hilarious name of Dr. Greta Pinder-Schloss) is determined for him to stick to their plan.  Fester/Gordon begins to realize that one's chosen family is sometimes more valuable that relationships with blood relatives - and certainly more valuable than money.

While it is by no means the best comedy to be released in the 90s, it is bizarre, dark and entertaining and features superb performances from a great cast with a bunch of great one-liners.  The film also spawned a sequel, Addams Family Values, two years later.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the animated feature films that were released in 2019 and 2021 respectively, featuring the voices of Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll, Snoop Dogg, Bette Midler, and Allison Janney.