Spoiler review ahead!
Ideal Home is a 2018 film (still in theaters at the moment, so go watch it) directed by Andrew Fleming and Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd and Jack Gore. It’s got comedy, drama, some romance and everything you need for a great #MovieMonday.
So, this is how the story goes: Paul Morgan (Rudd) is the on-set director and life partner of Erasmus Brumble (Coogan), a TV star and chef, and we see them living a life of luxury, excentric dinner parties and constant but charming shade-throwing before Angel (Gore), later renamed Bill, shows up at their house.
Bill is Erasmus’s grandson and went to live with them after his father’s arrest and the couple is turned upside down at the responsibility. Now, I loved this movie and here’s why: it manages to play on all these different subjects like child abandonment and resentment inside relationships and fidelity, parenting and the meaning of life without ever pausing from being a great comedy, with believable and compelling acting and a hilarious script that deals with gay stereotyping and parenting so good because this isn’t a movie about gay parents, it’s a movie about parenting and how everyone can discover they can and want to be parents no matter how late in life, it’s an argument in favor of the protection of children above their blood-relatives and how sometimes biological parents just need to step away in order for the child to have a good life.
Paul and Erasmus’s relationship throughout the movie was realistic, funny and witty, you see them throw verbal stabs at each other and it makes not only you but the characters reconsider if maybe their relationship expired, but in the end no matter how mad they can make each other, and oh boy, do they make each other mad, they are stronger together.
And that brings us to the soul of the movie and the main reason why I think they actually discovered they should stay together, Bill. Particularly his relationship with Paul, since Erasmus was usually providing the witty dialogue and dissolving the tension but Paul got stuck with the responsibility of parenting we see him fall in love with the kid, realizing that despite all his fears and doubts they should stay with him because they belong together. None of this could have happened, of course, without Jack Gore’s amazing acting, never exaggerating or underplaying any scene and making his transformation and learning process from beginning to end something captivating and human, as he slowly opens up and learns to be a part of this dysfunctional family while at the same time teaching his new dads a couple of things too.
All in all, this movie is entertaining from beginning to end, funny, sweet and carries a universal message. Go watch this movie.
Gonza.
Fan Base in Mars 