Addams Family Values (1993) REVISIT

Sometimes you just want to gush about movies you enjoy. I love the 90s Addams Family movies for their subversive satire and camp esthetic. The first film is a lovely comedy but it is Values which is my favourite, a film I enjoy each time I watch it with a silly grin on my face. With the characters and world already established, Values gets to push into some pretty smart and audacious critiques which also happen to be hilariously funny. The films, in their apparently innocent comedy burrow under the surface of our culture, especially in the age of "family values" and make us question what we truly do value.

Writer Paul Rudnick has a funny sensibility if a bit of a heavy hand and director Barry Sonnenfeld is bold but sometimes clumsy. But by putting together a hilarious cast and giving them the stage to embrace their characters, they tell a story that is delightful from start to finish. It is a story of a hustle, perpetrated on the family that sums up what is really important. It holds up just how twisted our culture is and how it is the outsiders who are the real moral examples.

Think of this cast; Raul Julia, Angelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Carol Kane, Christine Baranski, Peter McNichol, and of coarse Joan Cusack in what I find to be her most remarkable role. Her Debbie is the ultimate villain and every moment she is on screen is a twisted delight. And then there are the cameos including Nathan Lane, Cynthia Nixon, David Hyde Pierce, Dana Ivey, and Tony Shalhoub. It is like a dream come true.

But there is more to Values. It is kinky. It's feminist. It's anti-racist, anti-ablest, anti-colonialist. It's queer. It is a love letter to the rest of us.

Some little take aways from Values.

- When the baby is born and the family questions if it is a boy or a girl the answer is "it's an Addams!"
- Morticia and Gomez express their love for each other and all their children demonstrably.
- Gomez eagerly supports Morticia's pursuit of self-actualization with no threat to his masculinity, just a desire to see her be who she wants to be.
- Gomez and Morticia dancing in the restaurant is the sort of set piece that audiences remember.

The more times I watch it the more I find it remarkable for what it does. It is valuable indeed.

Addams Family Values
Starring: Raul Julia, Angelica Huston, Joan Cusack, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Carol Kane, Christine Baranski, Peter McNichol, David Krumholtz, Carel Stuycken, Jimmy Workman, Dana Ivey
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Writer: Paul Rudnick