Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

You got to give the producers of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day points for chutzpah. They took a 32 page picture book about nothing more than a boy who has a bad day and stretched it into a feature film. Its moral? Life is full of unfortunate events. First published in 1972, the title has since sold over four million copies. It’s safe to say it’s now considered a literary classic, but I hold the work in less enthusiastic regard. The Alexander of the text is a sulking brat that pouts from life’s drawbacks with which he is beset. These include: no prize in his cereal box, not getting a window seat in the car and a teacher that doesn’t fawn over his drawing of an invisible castle. He turned in a blank piece of paper for goodness sakes!

Thankfully screenwriter Rob Lieber has significantly expanded on the book’s flimsy premise. For one, the pitfalls that Alexander encounters really are things to justifiably get upset over. For instance, all of his friends are skipping his birthday for a more popular student’s party. That’s legitimately painful. To add insult to injury, everyone else in his family is living a charmed life of perfection. So much so that they seem oblivious to his woes. After having a particularly horrendous day, he retreats to his bedroom with a cupcake. Tomorrow is his birthday. On lighted candle, he wishes that his family could understand his plight by also having a bad day like him. Any bets on whether he’ll get his wish?

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is a pleasant comedy that earns its laughs from slapdash shenanigans. This is comedy at its most basic form. I’m surprised no one actually slipped on a banana peel or threw a pie in someone’s face. Bad things happening to people has been the basis for many comedies: The Out of Towners, Home Alone, etc. The cast gamely registers discomfort in awkward situations with amusing results. Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner embellish this production with star power as the parents. Even Dick Van Dyke shows up in a funny bit playing himself. Let’s be realistic. The repetitive screenplay would be more at home as a made for TV movie on the Disney channel than as a cinematic event. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I mean High School Musical captivated millions. I had pretty low expectations given the source book and they were exceeded. This is a decent picture that entertains just enough to make it passable time filler. It’s fast paced and breezes by in a scant 80 minutes. If you’ve got little ones to entertain, this should fit the bill.

10-11-14