As a result of a simple science class blood test, Zora Matthews (Nia Long) discovers that the man she had long thought of as her father couldn't be. After confronting her mother with this disarming truth, Sarah Matthews (Whoopi Goldberg) confesses to Zora that she is a product of artificial insemination. This sparks a quest for Zora to discover her real father. After getting the information from the sperm bank's records, she goes to meet Hal Jackson (Ted Danson), and finds out that the man whose sperm her mother used is rude, crude, and, worst of all, white.
Yeah, there are a lot of implausibilities in this script, but the story moves along snappily enough that most of them are easily overlooked. More difficult to miss is Richard Benjamin's occasionally inadequate direction. There are numerous scenes that could have been a whole lot funnier had Benjamin been more deft in choreographing them. Too often, he is heavy-handed, but the film survives in spite of him.
The first half of MADE IN AMERICA is highly amusing. Comedy is divided nicely between the outrageous and the subtle (although Bejamin likes to "point out" the less obvious moments by using tricks such as slow-motion). Unfortunately, the comic momentum fades as the film moves to a climax, with the big "plot twist" near the end seeming like something out of bad television melodrama. There are a lot of different ways that the story could have gone; the route it chooses is less-than-satisfying.
Surprisingly, although this is billed as a romantic comedy, I didn't find the romance between Sarah and Hal of particular note. Despite the rumors linking Goldberg and Danson together off-screen, there doesn't seem to be much chemistry between them. Far better are the interactions between mother and daughter, and father and daughter. I could believe these, which are at times touching and sweet, and on other occasions laced with bitterness.
There's no question that the best performance is given by Nia Long. Goldberg and Danson don't have to stretch much to keep in character. Hal is little more than a southern extension of CHEERS' Sam Malone and Sarah Matthews echoes roles that Goldberg has played in the past (a politically correct African-American single mother). Jennifer Tilly has a minor role as Hal's blond, airheaded, helium-voiced girlfriend. This seems to be a part that she was born to play. Never have I been more impressed with Ms. Tilly's acting than when she stares into the camera with that vacuous expression.
One of the failures of MADE IN AMERICA is in the way it introduces the two main characters. At the outset of the film, both Sarah and Hal are portrayed as irresponsible, arrogant, and thoroughly dislikeable. Although they soften as the story progresses, and the audience gradually warms to them, this is not a positive way to start a movie. It's typical in a romantic comedy for one of the partners to be acerbic and unpleasant, but it's unusual for this to be true of both of them. Had the comedy been less fresh, MADE IN AMERICA might have lost me early on.
As far as comedies go, this one is above-average, primarily because there aren't many clunkers among its jokes. Character development is so-so, and there are number of problems, some of which are significant, about the way the story progresses during the last half-hour. Overall, however, MADE IN AMERICA is enjoyable. It handles the issue of a mixed-race relationship sensitively (instead of sensationalistically) and presents an intriguing look at a very different family dynamic.
By : James Berardinelli
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 3
Back in 1972, Woody Allen broke filmic ground of sorts by playing Sperm in one of the episodes of "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask.) " By now, 21 years later, sperm has come of age in films, including "Made in America," a silly, innocuous and would-be romantic comedy.
The movie entertained me, but then I saw it under ideal conditions. To wit: I attended a morning screening, which means that the long day had not yet fatigued me and my critical disposition was on the tolerant side. The theater empty but for a couple of Whoopi-ite friends who came along . We were not subjected to a crowd whose laughter often comes at the wrong moments.
Since the film had been around for some weeks, I had seen negative or very mixed reviews and, expecting the worst I found much of the film enjoyable. .Of course, in restrospect, the movie is slighter, kinda dumber and more forgettable than when you watch it. Even so -- at least by TV sitcom standards-- "Made in America" is a cute little picture.
In Oakland, California, Sarah (Goldberg) runs an African-American bookstore with paraphernalia and objets d'art. The place is called "The African Queen," a name that could be seen initially as allusive, given the gayness of at least one of her employees. But this is either a red herring or a politically correct joke. The real subject attempted is black and white relations.
It all starts with a most unlikely school-lab session where the students are frantically pricking one another to establish blood types. Sarah's daughter Zora (Nia Long), a top graduating senior, discovers that her late father could not have been her progenitor.
She faces her mother who admits that after losing her husband she wanted a child so badly that she resorted to a sperm bank. Zora is understandably upset but quickly pacified by Sarah, with whom she has a wonderful relationship. Even so, understandably Zora wants to know who that biological father was.
She dragoons her classmate and best male friend Tea Cake (Smith) into a visit to a sperm bank. Tea Cake provides the excuse and the laughs. Zora, one of the computer whiz-kids of Generation X (cf. "Jurassic Park" and remember "WarGames" and many other flicks) taps into the records and finds out the name and Social Security number of the donor.
It is all improbable, as is Zora's lightning fast tracking down of the man. She is horrified to discover that he is white, while Sarah, equally shocked, worries about what all this will do to her daughter.
Note however that the movie is politically correct all the way and makes short shrift of color differences.This has a comforting effect on audiences that increasingly see black Americans and black-white relations in contexts of racism, strife and violence.
What especially outrages Sarah is not so much that Hal Jackson (Danson) is not black but that he is crass, loud, superficial and obnoxious. The owner of Jackson Motors, he is a car dealer who invades the TV screen with commercials that feature him in stunts with animals. Twice divorced, hard-drinking, chain-smoking and played convincingly as a dumbo, Hal lives in a beautiful home with Stacy (Jennifer Tilley) a bimboid aerobics instructor who exhausts him sexually and whose brainlessness is apparent even to the empty-headed Hal.
Following confrontations between Sarah and Hal, miscellaneous sheenanigans and physical mishaps involving people, a bear, an elephant, a bicycle and a car accident, there grows (predictably) real affection between Sarah, Zora and Hal, and love inevitably blossoms between Mama and Papa.
The movie is almost mathematically divided into four half-hour quarters. The first is very funny. The second less so but still amusing. Parts three and four struggle for what to do next. Groping for a "denouement" they respectively stress feelings and romance, and throw in a plot twist (we can see it coming) before the happy, warm ending.
There's no character development to speak of here, just superficialities and arbitrary changes, the most incredible causing Danson to reform suddenly, throw away his smokes and booze and become calm and sweet.
The naysaying reviewers find the Goldberg-Danson relationship to be the film's saving grace, but in fact Sarah and Hal generate neither mutual electricity nor sexiness. Yet each in his/her way, does have a special kind of charm.
The film's main lure lies in its comedic and slapstick effects -- broad, even cheap, but often rib-tickling -- and in the supporting cast. Young Nia Long ("Boyz N the 'Hood") is appealing. Jennifer Tilly is droll. She is not even mentioned in the movie's information materials -- a cruel omission since she's a show-stealer in her blend of airheads a la Gloria Grahame, Marilyn Monroe and others.
Excellent too is actor-rapper Smith ("The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" on TV). He is very likable, a kinetic delight who delivers his lines with sympathetic zest. This makes up a lot for a sketchy part that leaves us confused about Zora's relationship with him.
Movie veterans will spot, as one of the production assistants who are making the Hal Jackson commercials, a dead ringer of the young Richard Benjamin. The end credits list him as Ross Benjamin. It's nice to have a papa in the business.
PS. Above written in 1993. A 1996 re-viewing on cable TV yields the same positive reactions to this often underrated, even maligned comedy.
