Unstrung Heroes

This movie shows how you can find heros in the most unlikely people and places. Michael Richards character, Danny, was out-spoken and rude, but his quote, "People, they get trapped in their own history unless someone shows them a way out" is a great way of thinking, and the movie shows the hardship of growing up and finding someone special when no one else understands what you're going through. With another great direction job of Diane Keaton, brilliant performances by Andie MacDowell, and Michael Richards and an amazing score by Thomas Newman, this movie lets you know that heros can come from anywhere and be anybody.

I really liked this film. Kudos to Andie for not looking at all like a model. Solid dramatic work from Richards, and good direction from Keaton. My biggest criticism is that the stacks of newspapers and junk in the uncles' apartment were unrealistically neat. Whoever did the set design has never seen the "real deal," and it shows! They did manage, however, to avoid pinning the film to a specific time and place, which allowed the film to seem "apart from normal experience," somewhere between reality and someone's very personal dreamworld. Unstrung Heroes is not a big film. It has no definitive message, and it may never become well-known. It was made in an artful manner, rather than for box office receipts, however, and that is one quality I deeply respect.

Directed by Diane Keaton, this is a beautiful, child's eye view of a difficult but enlightening period in a young boy's life. From Franz Lidz's autobiographical book, it's the story of his experiences coming to terms with his mother's cancer (described to him by his father as "a very bad cold"), and the changes within his family brought about by her illness. Offered little more in the way of explanation or reassurance by his father who is naturally overwhelmed with losing his beautiful wife (well-played by Andie MacDowell), the boy bonds for the first time with his two endearingly oddball uncles. The emotional aspects and situations are expressed subtly but richly, with a warm cinematic vision.

John Turturro is excellent as the boy's father, who we see as being rather cold and cerebral, always preoccupied and dismissive. The father is a genius, the mother tells her son, explaining that his scientific mind might make him seem like he's from another planet, but to try and cut him some slack and learn to appreciate him. His true feeling and human quality is finally exposed when, during an extended study of his face late in the film, Turturro shows us all the emotion of this brilliant young man who is helpless in the face of his wife's devastating disease.

The certifiably mad Uncle Danny is played by Michael Richards, who is finally given the opportunity to bring his Kramer, of Seinfeld fame, to a fully realized and hilariously paranoid characterization. Going to live for a time with Uncle Arthur and Uncle Danny, the boy, Steven (re- named "Franz" by his uncles and played impressively by then 12-year-old Nathan Watt) experiences a look into his family history and decides to study for his Bar Mitzvah, contrary to his atheist father's wishes. He also cleverly engineers a solution to the "Lindquist Problem" (a war the uncles have going on with their landlord), and learns to care for and about the two of them. Thus he returns home to his immediate family and his dying mother, newly confident and better equipped to cherish the remaining moments of her life.

This is a special movie and I couldn't recommend it more highly. There's no sense of the maudlin where it might have gone that way, but there is great humor that will be enjoyable to a wide range of ages.

A young boy with an inventor for a father and a sick but loving mother finds life's answers in the unusual shenanigans of his two odd uncles, played by Michael Richards and Maury Chaykin. The uncles are hoarders and one is extremely paranoid. Though it's not really a coming-of-age story, the boy does expand his horizons through the unusual insights of his two uncles, one of whom collects, among everything else, balls "because they carry the sound of children playing" within them. It's a fairly interesting movie but nothing groundbreaking. Director Diane Keaton does about as well as anyone can with the material at hand. The two odd uncles provide a unique look at life to a confused young boy's eyes. John Turturro as the father is pretty unusual when we meet him as well but he loses his quirkiness once his wife, Andie MacDowell, comes down with an illness from which there is no hope of escape. The boy, now given a sense of self and purpose from his uncles, now has to rescue his father from giving up on life. The movie sways from comedy to pathos but is worth a viewing.

Thank you Diane Keaton! This movie is outstanding! My mother passed away from Cancer in 1983 when I was only 13 years old. This movie explains exactly how one can feel as a young kid.(i.e. 'going crazy'-Uncle Danny, the need to find pleasure in 'simple things' –Uncle Arthur).

I have seen this movie about 20-30 times and it gets better each time.

I'm not sure why this movie is not more accepted 'main stream' or why it did not do better---financially-when it was in theaters----but I really appreciate Mrs. Keaton making this movie.

From the need to find God, the frustrations and anger that the father faced, and the need to just be a kid and try to enjoy life while you watch your mother pass away, this is exactly how you feel when going through this.