As the bully walks off and everyone cheers for Lenny, the big dude’s wife tells him, “That was the manliest thing you’ve ever done.” Then he does an about-face and talks directly to the unborn child: “I just want to tell you welcome to the family, and I love you very, very much.”Ī former childhood bully allows Lenny to cow him into submission-helping Lenny teach his son a lesson about the importance of standing up for yourself. Lenny loves his tight family unit so much that he’s disinclined to add another member to the brood-until Roxanne announces that she’s pregnant. At dinner, he tells his family that this is his favorite part of the day-when he gets to spend time with his “four best friends.” And even as a party rages in his backyard, Lenny tucks his daughter into bed, tells her (an admittedly odd) bedtime story and stays with her until she seems to be asleep.
Lenny, for instance, teaches his son to kick a football. Most of these guys love being fathers as much as they do being husbands.
So the movie honors the institution even as it acknowledges its day-to-day frictions. There’s disagreement about whether to have another baby. And a hubby dotes on his mother a little too much. A wife forgets a 20th anniversary, for instance. No one’s hovering on the brink of divorce, and the relational frustrations we see all feel pretty normal. Lenny, Eric and Kurt are all loving husbands married to loving wives.
And while Grown Ups 2 is hardly a guidebook on how to be a good grown-up, neither is it devoid of merit: But these plot points, and about two-dozen others, are enough of an excuse to make a movie, right? At least for Adam Sandler they are.Īdulthood ain’t always easy, what with its emphasis on jobs and mortgages and parenting and more-or-less mature relationships. There’s still no crisis here to speak of. Or before Eric’s daughter goes to school wearing what appear to be Christmas lights on her boots. Or before Lenny’s beautiful wife, Roxanne, starts asking him if he’d like to have another baby. Or before Marcus’ long-lost, hitherto-unknown punk of a son came to visit. Or so it was, until the four pals run afoul of a bevy of attitude-laden frat brothers. These guys are just plagued by middle-age heartburn. Instead of rocking out to the latest pop-metal band, they’re rocking their children to sleep.Īnd that’s just fine, really. Instead of downing beers at 2 a.m., they’re toasting juice boxes at 8 p.m. And Marcus … well, I’m not really sure what Marcus does, but then he doesn’t either, so no matter. Lenny’s rich from a stint in Hollywood, it seems. But they’re increasingly aware that they’re not the same young bucks they once were. Oh, they’re not old old yet: None are checking out retirement homes, and all have most of their teeth. But while the not-so-fearsome foursome manages to keep a toe or two planted in the past, the rest of their bods have been ushered-rather unceremoniously, in some cases-into the 21st century. Fast-forward 25 years or so, and the four amigos still live in the same quaint village. Consider (again) the case of Lenny Feder, who spent his childhood in a small New England town, with school chums Eric, Kurt and Marcus.
All of us grow old eventually-even those who never really grow up.