9) Blended (2014): “It’s the end of the world as we know it”
Adam Sandler is the human incarnation of the phrase “throw enough mud and some of it will stick.” There are, in many of his movies, flashes of brilliance that are all his own – which combined have been just enough to allow him to continue making films after atrocities such as Little Nicky and Jack and Jill, rather than being sent to prison for crimes against humanity. Add to that latent potential the infinitely charming Drew Barrymore, as Sandler did in the wonderful The Wedding Singer and the almost as wonderful 50 First Dates, and we have Sandler as his best: A loveable, laid back chap with a great sense of humour.
2014’s Blended, however, failed to recapture the magic of the first two Sandler/Barrymore collaborations. It was nice to see them together again, and with Sandler’s tendency towards grossly inappropriate or toilet humour mainly kept in check, there was just enough space for some heart to trickle through.
But ultimately, Blended just simply wasn’t funny. Not only was the script clearly lazy in this regard, but the attempts at jokes that are included barely take off, let alone land. The same applies to the sight gags. Surprisingly, however, in Blended there is one spark of smartness that comes from neither of the traditional sources.
Jim (Sandler) plays the widowed father of three girls, a role for which he is categorically unprepared, especially when it comes to handling the developing maturity of his eldest, Hilary. With Jim having brought all his children up in the only way he knows how, i.e. as boys, it is Hilary –or “Larry,” as Jim calls her – that has borne most of the brunt of this.
Living in tracksuits and sporting the sort of haircut usually only found on Barbie dolls once a five year old has discovered the scissors, Hilary is frequently mistaken for a boy, including by Jake, the son of a couple her family meet on holiday on whom she immediately develops a crush. Seeing Hilary’s awkwardness and mortification, Lauren (Barrymore) who obviously has no girls of her own, takes her for a makeover. Hilary makes her first appearance with her new image at dinner that night, arriving after everyone else in their party has sat down.
As Hilary approaches in slow motion, short clips of three pieces of music play to represent the reaction of three characters who are watching her. First is Shaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” as Lauren watches her, glowing with pride and satisfaction in her work. Second is Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love to You,” as Jake gapes at the new Hilary, stunned at the transformation from tomboy to femme fatale. The third clip, which plays over the reaction of Jim himself, is REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.”
The sudden change to that song’s high-speed vocals and rapid-fire rhythm that dominate the shot of Jim’s horrified face as he fails to comprehend this version of his daughter is brilliant for its abrupt contrast to the previous two tracks, and also for the cheerily over-dramatic nature of the lyrics themselves, which perfectly represent Jim’s shock and indignation. The track is a faultless choice for conveying what many fathers of daughters will probably really experience at some point in their lives, while maintaining the comedic context of the movie. The shot lasts approximately six seconds, but for at least the first two seconds it is a genuine laugh out loud moment.
Unfortunately, “less is more” has never been Sandler’s strong point, and exactly the same sequence of tracks is used to represent a very similar situation later in the movie, which sadly detracts from the brief genius of the first time. We also have to ignore the blatant message in that scene that girls have to look a certain way if they are ever going to attract someone, and the fact that Jim – by this point in the day – was very likely to have already seen his daughter with her new hair style. But the rare moments in Blended such as these do prove that somewhere, somehow, Sandler still has something.
We can only pray that one day he stops feeling the need to share everything – and we do mean everything – else as well.