The Sunshine Boys (1996)

[StevePulaski]

The Sunshine Boys (1996)
Directed by: John Erman

Woody Allen, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Peter Falk.

Rating: ★★★
NOTE: Part of "Woody Allen Mondays," an ongoing movie-watching event.

Here's a recipe for a great set-up. Have comedy legends Woody Allen and Peter Falk star as bitter comedians, feuding through a tireless agent, who is one of their relatives, and have it conclude with a hint of mortality suggesting the finale we get is the best we could ever expect from the two stars.

John Erman's The Sunshine Boys — the made-for-Hallmark remake of the 1975 Herbert Ross film, faithfully adapted by Neil Young's Broadway play — is a workable and funny movie thanks to the strengths of its stars. The reason Young's play was such a hit both on stage and on the screen was because it's a concept was strong as the actors who played the leading roles. I can't say for certain that Allen and Falk compare or best George Burns (who won an Oscar for his performance) and Walter Matthau in Ross's film, but they exercise their comic abilities and make an ultimately unnecessary remake feel somewhat purposeful as a slight showcase.

Allen and Falk play Al Lewis and Willy Clark, respectively, who once made up the successful vaudeville duo known as "Lewis and Clark" or "The Sunshine Boys." Their act ran four decades before Al couldn't take any more of Willy's improvisational rewrites and Willy couldn't take another face-full of spit from Al exaggerating the pronunciation of his "T's." The two parted ways 11 years ago and their act has laid dormant ever since. Since then, Willy has struggled to find even menial spokesman jobs for products and Al is content paying $20 for a $3 watch from the kid down the street as he sulks away at home.

In walks Nancy (Sarah Jessica Parker), Willy's niece and agent, who is desperately trying to get the two together for a network Christmas special willing to pay them $75,000 each. She bounces back and forth from Willy's dusty apartment to Al's own quarters in efforts to convince them to do a table-read of the script at the very least. Nancy manages to get them both in Willy's apartment to look over their lines, and over the course of fifteen minutes, any ambiguity over why the two went their separate ways is dispelled. Al and Willy simply cannot stay on the same page, quite literally.

The Sunshine Boys includes several humorous asides, some of which coming from when the two comics are separated and forced to interact with Parker, who sometimes feels like a straightwoman at her breaking point. An early scene involves Nancy arriving at Al's home while he's in his living-room watching infomercials. Al points to every item of jewelry being shilled on TV, barking the retail price, the price it's being sold at, and bragging what he allegedly paid for it from his pal Morty. This casual conversation winds up being uproariously funny thanks to a delicate and rare mixture of Allen's self-deprecating side and his confident bloviating that comes off like a man trying to woo a younger woman — when in this case that's not the intention of the scene.

Yet when Allen and Falk get in frame together, their banter both tantalizes and exhausts. Any admirer of Odd Couple-esque humor or the situational dynamics so integral to the comic romps of the 1970s will find a plethora of moments to enjoy in The Sunshine Boys. When Al and Willy diligently try to read through their lines, but only after an awkward altercation involving hot water and teabags, Allen and Falk exhibit the worst traits of themselves. It's their foot-on-the-gas escalation of these toxic qualities that makes us laugh and continue to laugh throughout.

If there is a flaw in this admittedly imperfect remake, it's that Falk's Willy is so often made more unlikable than Allen's Al, which more-than-once disrupts the inequitable relationship. Not to mention, if we want to keep an even-handed perspective, or at least one similar to Nancy's where we see the faults in both men, Simon making Willy borderline insufferable can be seen as monkeying with the formula. There are some points where Willy is objectively in the wrong, such as when he's making life hell for studio execs who are simply trying to see a walkthrough of the script, or when he drags out the table-read between him and Al to the point where he makes him exit his apartment and act out his role despite Al's opposition. The emphasis on those situations make you question if these two could've tolerated working with one another for six months despite being told their act was one that lasted two score.

The Sunshine Boys also features amusing cameos from Liev Schreiber as a talent-seeker for an interchangeable brand of potato chips along with Whoopi Goldberg as a nurse who can take a quip and dish one out just as fast. But the real stars of the show are Allen and Falk, and while you're at it, throw Parker in there for her commitment to a thin but necessary arbitrator between two cantankerous codgers. You'll get bonus satisfaction if you imagine she's playing Carrie Bradshaw in her pre-column days.

Starring: Woody Allen, Peter Falk, Sarah Jessica Parker, Liev Schreiber, Michael McKean, Whoopi Goldberg, and Edie Falco. Directed by: John Erman.