Smart House tries (and fails) to escape the DCOM formula
It’s rated among the best DCOMs. And yet…
After watching the disappointing DCOM The Thirteenth Year, I wondered if I would have the same reaction to the next film in the canon, Smart House (1999). Both were films I watched as a kid, but haven’t seen in years.
It worried me that a film I liked as a kid sucked when I watched it as an adult. I wasn’t prepared to have that experience twice in a row.
Fortunately, this film was better. It at least a had a few things going for it before I watched the movie. It’s directed by Levar Burton, the host of Reading Rainbow and Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: the Next Generation.
The film also stars Katey Sagal as the titular house, PAT. She also appears in person. If her voice sounds familiar to you, then you’ve probably watched Futurama, where she voices Taranga Leela.
Of course, some people also remember her in shows like Sons of Anarchy or 8 Simple Rules, but I remember her as Peggy Bundy in the classic sitcom Married… With Children.
Her role in Smart House is essentially the opposite of Peggy (despite having the same hair), which is probably why she took the job in the first place (Other than that precious Disney $$$).
Before we talk about the house, let’s talk about the family. We have Ben Cooper (Ryan Merriman), a kid whose mom died a few years before (curse you, Disney). He assumes the maternal role in her absence.
He was almost insufferable in the beginning, especially when he talked to his sister, Angie, about his mom. He refuses to allow another mom to exist in the family and Angie was too young to remember her, which devastates Ben.
You see, Ben refuses to have a new mother because he thinks his dad, Nick (Kevin Kilner), will forget about her. It’s understandable, but it gets in the way of the healing process. As any person who has lost a family member knows, death is inevitable, but their memory will live on.
Acceptance is a normal thing, but Ben didn’t quite get that until later in the film when his dad pointed out that Ben wasn’t the only one who lost someone that day.
This is probably the point the movie tried to make, and it succeeds — in its own convoluted way. They confront Pat with the fact that she can’t (and can never) be a mother. The ending felt rushed since there’s so little to talk about character or story-wise.
But we’ll talk about that in a minute. This is one of those DCOMs that is remembered fondly among many. It’s often ranked as one of the top films in the DCOM canon.
Naturally, I have to think about why that is. Unlike The Thirteenth Year, you don’t have to put your nostalgia goggles on to enjoy it.
Why is it so popular then? For me, there’s two reasons. The first, and most obvious, reason is the titular house. Who wouldn’t want this house? You can ask her to do anything and it would do it.
Make you a smoothie? Done. Turn your room into a virtual safari? A damn lion is staring at you on the wall. Only reply with Pootie Tang quotes? Capachow.
It seems like a great idea in theory, but would be damn near impossible in practice in 1999. We didn’t even have good internet, cell phones, or computers then, let alone a house that can do almost anything. That house would have made a company go bankrupt twice. Then they decided to give it out for free? Here’s a an artist’s rendition of that pitch meeting:
It can’t be overstated how much this house would really cost. That family is going to have to pay property taxes plus income taxes based on the value of the house. So yeah, they won a “free” house, but they won’t be in it for long (unless PAT can print money). I can’t wait for the sequel when Ben’s family moves out because a two-income, middle-class household couldn’t afford to live in what must be close to a million-dollar home.
Not to mention that the first time something goes wrong, PAT’s creator, Sara (Jessica Steen), would be so sued. Obviously, something does go wrong, but Nick and Sara are dating, so it’s all good. But what about future ‘smart’ buildings? Sara mentioned a “smart office,” but as soon as someone gets stapled to a wall, she’ll be ruined.
Aside from the logistical nightmare of giving away what must be one of the most expensive houses in the county, the movie’s characters are weak. Ben and his sister had the most personality, but everyone else is too bland and forgettable.
Even the bully-character-who’s-a-bully-for-no-particular-reason wasn’t a source of entertainment. He was just an asshole. Christopher McDonald in Lemonade Mouth he is not.
That’s what makes my second reason for Smart House’s success so ironic. This is the first (and possibly the only) DCOM that’s almost entirely character-driven. Sure, there’s a plot, but the story mostly revolves around the family.
Things happen, like PAT going haywire and becoming an overprotective mother, and that entire party scene, but the focus always comes back to the characters. Even when the family confronts PAT in the end, it becomes about their relationship and how they’ve developed as a family, especially with the addition of Sara.
There are glimpses of good development and ideas, so it’s sad to see it fall short. I just wish the characters were more relatable and fleshed out.
Typically, when a story is weak, or even just lacking in depth, the characters should make up for it, or vice-versa. You could see there was effort to make a character-driven film, but they didn’t quite get it right. It seems like they wanted to cling to normal DCOM tropes in a film that requires straying from the beaten path.
Smart House is not like other DCOMs because the location is so simple and limited. That’s not inherently a problem; The Breakfast Club is a great character-driven film in a single location.
Now, I’m not trying to say that Smart House better than The Breakfast Club (it’s not), but the comparison is justified. It serves as an example of the importance of good characterization when other areas of filmmaking are less significant. When your characters are so exposed, you need to make them good.
Oddly enough, someone at Disney Channel may have noticed this years later, because they did make Disney-fied version of The Breakfast Club called Lemonade Mouth. To be fair, that’s a film adaptation of a book, but at least they tried.
Despite saying all of this, I actually do like this movie. I just wish that, after seeing it for the first time in years, it would have had the same impact as it did when I was younger.
What’s next? Johnny Tsunami? FINALLY. And it’ll be my tenth review. I’ll do something special for every ten films in the canon. And yes, High School Musical 2 will be one of those ten.
This is part of an ongoing series on the entire Disney Channel Original Movie canon. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram to r̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶r̶a̶m̶b̶l̶i̶n̶g̶s̶ stay updated on my posts.
