It’s the end-ish of August and all around the USA, people are going back to school. For some that means going back the daily grind of compulsory school. Others might be entering the exciting and soul crushing world of higher academia, college. And for others, that might simply mean that you get to unload your kids on the state and take your first breath in nearly four months. No matter what your position, back to school season is a pretty exciting time, I guess. It’s the time of year that heralds in the end of the year, when we get to celebrate some pretty awesome holidays, like Kwanzaa, or Sun Yat-Sen’s Birthday. No matter what you choose to celebrate, back to school season gets things rolling in style.
I figured to celebrate this time of year, and to get us all in that back to school spirit, we’d look at an old classic about school and the important lessons that we can learn while we’re there. Billy Madison wasn’t Adam Sandler’s first movie. It wasn’t even the first movie where he got top billing, but ti was the first movie that I’m aware of that implemented his plucky underdog wins the day formula. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
The year was 1993. Many of the alumnists from Saturday Night Live were graduating out of that show and striking out to do their own projects. It was a really great time to see a comedy because you had names like Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, David Spade, Chris Farley, and Adam Sandler entering the theatrical arena in force. They were kicking comedy butt and taking names as they went. Sandler had done a handful of films previous to Madison, most of which are not memorable at all, with the exception of Mallrats. Madison was really his second really big film, and as I said earlier, he created what would become a really successful formula for himself.
The basic premise of the film is that Billy Madison, played by Sandler, is a 27 year old man child who lives with his dad in their mansion, and wastes his days on sunbathing, drinking, and looking at porn magazines. His dad owns a large chain of hotels and the family is quite wealthy. Billy’s dad decides that he wants to retire and Billy is unprepared to take over the company so dad decides to pass it on to another more conniving person instead. Unhappy with this decision, Billy makes a deal that if he can finish grades one through twelve in six months, he can inherit the company.
It’s a pretty straightforward premise, and it’s your standard hero’s journey structure. Of course, it’s got the Sandler twist to it from when he was making ‘good’ movies’. Let me just say that if you don’t like bottom of the barrel humor, this movie is definitely not for you. In fact, I had a really hard time sticking with it for this review. It definitely has its moments, but you’ll mostly be getting gutter humor and cheap laughs along the way. There are a few surprises here and there so let’s take a look.
First, the score is surprisingly fitting for the movie. There’s a feel of academic mockery underneath it that works really well. Sandler does a pretty good job acting in this film. He starts out a totally self-centered man child with no positive traits to speak of, and he plays it to the hilt. You just want to strangle him throughout most of the first act because he’s absolutely reprehensible. He does do a great job portraying the transformation into a more intelligent, selfless, and mature person as the movie goes along.
There are some great characters sprinkled in the movie. Miss Lippy, played by Dina Platias, is subtlety hysterical! She plays Billy’s first grade teacher and her sunshine and rainbows approach to passive aggressiveness is classic. The main villain, Eric Gordon, played by Bradley Whitford, isn’t a classic villain by any stretch, but he pulls off over the top annoying really effectively. He’s another character that you find yourself wanting to strangle as you watch, and you’re rooting against him the entire time. There’s a surprise appearance from an actress with an impressive pedigree, Theresa Merritt. If you’re not familiar, she’s probably best known for her portrayal of Aunt Em in The Wiz, and she played the titular ‘Mama’ in the 70s sitcom, That’s My Mama. She plays Billy’s maid in this film and it’s funny to see her trying to get Sandler to break character during their scenes together.
There are some good lessons to be learned about being a decent human being, and especially about treating others with kindness and respect. Although I’d say that the movie in and of itself is not quite intelligent enough to possess much of an overall theme, the lessons about kindness to one another are nice. There’s also some fairly inspirational stuff about working hard, and applying yourself to accomplish your goals peppered in there.
We could spend a ton of time on some of the bad aspects of this movie. Sandler had a ‘signature style’ back in these days that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. There were a lot of pointless detours from the main plot that just make no sense. There are unnecessary moments of creepiness that result in an array of WTF moments. There are characters that are so over the top that they effectively remove you from the movie as you’re trying to watch. None of it really makes sense, and all of it can be pretty annoying. The humor is crass, the jokes are often low hanging, and the acting can be hit or miss. So why is this even a remotely enjoyable movie to watch?
I think the reason that at least I come back to this film is that it taps into a longing that I have as an adult to return to the simpler times of childhood. How many of us look back fondly to those days when all we had to worry about was having fun, and being innocent to the ways of the world. For me, it takes me back to the excitement of making new friends, learning new things, and approaching those holidays that we discussed. I’m not much of an autumn/winter guy now, but when I was a kid, I lived for it. My favorite TV shows would start airing new episodes, I lived for Halloween, and I actually enjoyed the crispness of autumn back when my mind and body were more adaptable. There was a magic about being young during back to school season and in a miniscule way, Billy Madison captures that.
If Madison fails on every other level, it does succeed in helping me to get back in touch with my inner child, and that’s a pretty sweet victory. It does manage to keep a semi-coherent plot going, and the laughs are decent. It’s aged relatively well because that desire to just be a kid again is in all of us. We often long for it until it consumes us, but this movie lends a harmless outlet for a short time that we can revisit over and over to our heart’s content. Give it a watch for fun, and reconnect with the childhood that you left behind.
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