Yours, Mine & Ours (2005) Movie Review

During this time of year we are always force-fed some family holiday film that tries to teach us a valuable lesson. I am not talking about the “Santa Clause” or “The Grinch”. I am talking about sappy detrimental films like 2003’s “Cheaper by the Dozen” and others. You know those family “for the sake of family” films that are must viewing around the holidays even if they barely have a holiday theme.

“Yours, Mine and Ours” stars Dennis Quaid as Frank Beardsley, a navy admiral who is a single dad raising his eight kids. Chaos erupts when the Frank meets his old high school sweetheart, Helen (Rene Russo) and the sparks start to fly again. A whirlwind romance commences and the two get married. The only problem is that Helen has 10 kids of her own.

Cue the theme music:

“Here's the story of a lovely lady Who was bringing up ten kids of her own. All of them had free-spirited minds, like their mother, The youngest one has a pig.

Here's the story, of a man named Beardsley, Who was busy with eight kids of his own, They were ten people, living all together, Yet they were all alone.

Till the one day when the lady met this admiral And they knew it was much more than a hunch, That this brood would somehow form a family. That's the way we all became the Beardsley Bunch. The Beardsley Bunch,

That's the way we all became the Beardsley Bunch. The Beardsley Bunch.”

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

“Yours, Mine & Ours” is your typical garden-variety family comedy. It is no more and no less. There are the screaming kids, the cute kids, the cheerleader sister and the leader oldest brother. They have even allowed for six of Helen’s kids to be mixed races and sexes. I guess you could say they made a “Brady UN”. Now only if they could all get along so we can get choked up by the ending.

Amongst the chaos are actually quite staggering performances from Quaid and Russo who deserve all the credit here. They are both fine actors but need better material. OK, Dennis and Rene you have done one for the kids back home, now let’s do one for your careers.

I can whole-heartedly say that “Yours, Mine & Ours” was very, very hard to sit through and definitely not my kind of movie. I just can’t get over how each of these pictures is basically the same as the one before. Talk about genres that never evolve.

With the “Cheaper by the Dozen” sequel opening next month, this film will probably be remembered as “Cheaper by the Dozen 3”.

So Says the Soothsayer