He flies to New York for a job interview, Nancy tags along, and we sense the movie's desperation in a scene on the plane. She's seated several rows behind him, and asks the passengers in between to pass up his Foot Chums and rash ointment. A woman like that deserves to be in an empty nest all by herself.
But the thing is, Nancy isn't really that lame-brained. She can be smart, tender, goofy or stubborn--or whatever the screenplay requires from moment to moment. That's because she isn't really anybody at all, and neither is Henry. They're devices to be manipulated--figures on a chessboard.
Lots of things go wrong on the trip, which is taken by plane, train and automobile, providing a melancholy reminder of Martin's much better 1987 movie--and also of the current "Forces of Nature,'' in which Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock go through a similar ordeal. The trick in a film like this is to keep the characters consistent as the situations change. If the characters as well as the situations are slippery, there's no place to stand. And if you're determined to have a sweet, uplifting ending, all is lost.
It helps to observe situations closely, to find humor in the details rather than trusting the general scene. Consider a sequence where Henry and Nancy blunder into a meeting of Sex Addicts Anonymous because they're starving, and spot the free sweet rolls. They don't realize what kind of a meeting it is, and the movie thinks that's joke enough, so it doesn't really see the other people at the meeting. I'm reminded of a scene in John Waters' "Polyester,'' where Tab Hunter blunders into an AA meeting and is asked to introduce himself. He gives his name. "And?'' ask the assembled members. "AND? AAANNNDDD???'' They're shot with a fish-eye lens as they peer at him, waiting for the magic words, "and I'm an alcoholic.'' In "The Out-of-Towners,'' the filmmakers think it's funny enough that the sex addicts are creepy, and Henry and Nancy are grossed out by their stories. That misses the point. In comedy, you figure out what the objective is and go for it single-mindedly. Why are Henry and Nancy at the meeting? Because they want those sweet rolls! So what should they do? Win the sweet rolls by any means necessary, telling the members whatever they want to hear. I can imagine Martin and Hawn improvising sexual addictions all night long. But not in this movie, which skims the surface.
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