Real Life (1979)

In his most thorough feat of self-deprecation, Albert Brooks plays himself as a smarmy upstart Hollywood director charged with filming a real-life portrait of an "ordinary" Phoenix family to be financed by the Boulder Institute for Behavioral Science. Taking as its satirical subject the PBS series "An American Family", Real Life's opening text scroll includes an excerpt from a media critic that reads (paraphrasing), "This is a whole new method of anthropological research…as interpreted by the camera." It's the last part, "interpreted by the camera," that clearly interests Brooks. In detailing the crumbling of the family and the director's process of selecting what to shoot and how (it isn't long before he's staging scenes), Brooks shows how the mere presence of the camera shapes a new reality for spectator and subject. Their first dinner under camera (the technicians wear ridiculous astronaut-like helmet devices over the top halves of their bodies) has Charles Grodin trying to present his perfect family, but his stressed-out wife gives a hilariously blunt assessment of her feelings. (Meanwhile, Brooks wonders whether his leading man is coming across as unsympathetic.) The institute's naïve statisticians don't see the folly of their pursuit until Brooks makes the film his blatant vanity project; the comic highpoint is a montage of happy, slow-motion family moments that Brooks narrates ("I'll show the French what a montage really is!"). In this project, all are delusional, from the quixotic scientists who fatuously hired Hollywood talent for a film about reality to the unseen producer who makes money the inappropriate subject of every conversation. And film-making, like all profit-driven endeavors, is subject to self-interest, rendering futile the entire notion of the camera as objective recorder. But try telling that to a Hollywood producer.

Albert Brooks wrote and directed this goof on the PBS landmark "An American Family" and it's hysterical. Trying to record the day to day banalities of an average American family, film-maker Brooks and company are as intrusive as possible while trying to be invisible --- the cameraman wears large orb-like headgear.As the "everyman," Brooks wisely casts Charles Grodin, then at the height of his career and perfect playing the kind of inept father/husband just itching to be caught doing the most absurd things. Nobody is better at losing their grip than Grodin and Brooks eggs him on until he explodes. Brooks doesn't just film the family, he invades their lives and captures a lot of uncomfortable moments like a gynecological exam! REAL LIFE is a masterpiece of comic discomfort.

Any Albert Brooks fan who has not seen his first glorious feature is truly missing out. As anyone can attest, Brooks has the rare gift of turning ordinary human moments into riotously funny scenes, and this film is full of such moments, plus much more subversive material, like the way Grodin's character repeatedly comes perilously close to committing a felony against his family.Perhaps the greatest joke of all is that while the character "Albert Brooks" continuously states how he is documenting real life, we all know that this is really a star vehicle for him. He is more concerned with how much everything costs, like the head-held cameras (for those who haven't seen it, imagine the result of torrid affair between Dave Bowman and the Hal-9000). This film, more that anything, is a satirical take on how Hollywood subverts what is really "real life," all this coming from a director with as great a grasp on how humans relate to one another than anyone.

This movie killed me! I got it off the PVT sale rack at Blockbuster. A major find, if you ask me. You can't even begin to describe Albert Brooks' humor. It's so complex, you have to see it to understand. Once you understand, you'll laugh your head off!