Alex (Michael Douglas) is a wealthy middle-aged Manhattan lawyer in the firm that his domineering father, Mitchell (Kirk Douglas), founded years ago. He lives in a loft with his wife, Rebecca (Bernadette Peters), who is a therapist. They have two children: 11-year-old Eli (Rory Culkin), who studies martial arts and doesn't say much, and 21-year-old Asher (Cameron Douglas), who's flunking out of college and selling marijuana to keep himself amused. On Passover, Mitchell shows up with his wife, Evelyn (Diana Douglas), and his senile brother Stephen (Mark Hammer), a former sailor, who lives in a home for the aged. At the seder meal, sparks fly between Alex and his strong-willed father, who still jogs in Central Park a year after having a heart attack. Evelyn and Rebecca, who have spent years trying to calm these two men down, do their best to salvage the evening.
Fred Schepisi directs this cross-generational family drama written by Jesse Wigutow. The late spiritual teacher Eknath Easwaran once wrote: "Mogul art, one of the great periods of artistic achievement in India, often is in miniature. The artist concentrated on very small areas, on little things, and worked with such tenderness and precision that only somebody who understands art will be able to see all the love and labor that went into it. Family living is like Mogul art, worked in miniature. The canvas is so small, and the skill required is so great, that most of us really do not evaluate the vast potentialities of family life which enable us all to find our freedom." Although some may carp over the melodramatic excesses in this movie, more serious film-goers will want to savor the little moments that signal the yearnings of various family members.
For instance, Alex and Rebecca are taken aback when Eli hands them a personal expense report. They have to decipher what he is saying to them with the spreadsheet. Asher is late to pick up his grandmother at the Columbia University Dialysis Center, and he is genuinely sorry; it seems that he has as large an inferiority complex as his father does. Evelyn sees some people dancing in a large room as they drive home one evening, and the next day asks Mitchell to turn off the television set and dance with her in the living room to "You'll Never Know." And Rebecca, who finds out that Alex has tried to have sex with another woman at a soup kitchen where they work, struggles to come to terms with her anger, sadness, and grief without walking away from her marriage. In perhaps the most tender and touching scene in the film, Alex and Mitchell spend some quality time together expressing their feelings.
In all these little moments, the characters are trying to claim a small share of meaning, hope, bravery, and happiness. Family life in this era of constant pressures, interruptions, and disappointments is not easy. But like those Mogul masterpieces, there is more than meets the eye to be found in the hearts and minds of fathers, mothers, children, and grandparents. On the surface, our lives may seem like melodramas, but we know that they are little works of art.
