MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Immediate Family’ a Predictable Drama on Adoption

What in the sweet name of goodness is “Immediate Family” (citywide) doing in a movie theater? You expect writing this leaden from the grimmest ghettoes of television: earnest, unbuoyant talk that takes a subject like childlessness and teen-age adoption and flattens it into drama that’s predictable down to the smallest reference, which in this case is a flowering plum tree.

Obviously, the film’s cast of heavy hitters--Glenn Close, James Woods and Mary Stuart Masterson--has boosted it over the fence and into the local 14-plexes. Don’t let that sway you. Mush is still mush, even when it’s directed by “Heart Like a Wheel’s” Jonathan Kaplan.

Cast as the film’s warm, loving center, neither Close nor Woods seems comfortable or even ideal for the assignment. You keep waiting for Woods’ vet, a specialist in canine microsurgery, to develop a mean streak and to drop that kitty he’s holding; instead, he perseveres as the year’s most unlikely Mr. Nice Guy. You wait, too, for Close to retire that radiantly artificial smile and those brimming eyes and just be for one single moment. It never happens.

The film poses a virtually undebatable question: Where will a baby from an unplanned pregnancy get its best shot in life? Will it be with its birth parents, struggling under-class teen-agers (Masterson, Kevin Dillon), or with a pair of have-it-all, childless professionals (Close, Woods).

Given this setup, the answer should be pretty clear-cut, but Barbara Benedek’s screenplay turns our feelings around, unintentionally. As we meet Close’s rigid realtor, on her way to an upscale child’s birthday party, she complains that animals hate her, children don’t like her and she always buys the wrong present. We’re supposed to feel just the opposite, to see her charm, to get to know her human qualities. Unfortunately, the more we’re shown, the more we side with the animals.

Her character is relentless--socially obtuse, self-pitying and preachy. “You’re asking me the secret of a happy marriage?” she muses to Masterson, who didn’t exactly ask. “Respect, affection, a lot of laughs, a sense of yourself and only one person gets to be crazy at a time.” (One friendly component in a marriage doesn’t even place on that list?)

Not all the performances are so achingly high-minded. Take a look at what Masterson has done with this pregnant waif who choses “open adoption”--in which both adoptive parties meet before the birth--as the best way for her baby. Masterson’s teen-ager, the child of a 17-year-old mother herself, is by turns cocky, lost, suspicious, yearning and coming to maturity almost before our eyes. Even her smallest emotion is pure and real.

As the baby’s sweet, faintly dim father, another damaged kid, snub-nosed Kevin Dillon gives the picture’s other solid performance. But the pure likability of these two creates the movie’s only real conflict: We have a decent too-young couple who must give up their baby and, as the lucky recipients, a pair of cool, remote adults, two of the last people on earth you could see in mixing in the messy dailyness of parenthood.

Even the music is specious. This isn’t a musical score, it’s connect-the-titles time--every song asks a musical question that the screen then answers. When Close and Woods go through their infertility regimen, the song is “Creatures of Love.” As Masterson slumps in dejection, Ray Charles croons “Young girls do get weary . . . try a little tenderness.” The young couple slips away on a lyrical drive to “Motherless Children.” And Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” does double duty, but its most excruciating use comes when Close and Masterson dance to it, in a moment of ineffable bonding.

This, from the usually thoughtful producing team of Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury (“River’s Edge,” “Eight Men Out”), under Lawrence Kasdan’s production banner, and from Kaplan, who has in the past looked at women with such detailed sensitivity (“Heart Like a Wheel,” “The Accused”). How does the song go? “Say it isn’t so. . . .”

‘IMMEDIATE FAMILY’

A Lawrence Kasdan production in association with Sanford/Pillsbury Productions. Executive producer Kasdan. Producers Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford. Director Jonathan Kaplan. Screenplay Barbara Benedek. Editor Jane Kurson. Camera John W. Lindley. Production design Mark Freeborn. Music Brad Fiedel. Costumes April Ferry. Art director David Willson, set decorator Kimberley Richardson. Sound Sandy Berman. With Glenn Close, James Woods, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kevin Dillon, Jane Greer, Jessica James.

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

MPAA-rated: PG-13 (parents strongly cautioned; some material may be inappropriate for children under 13).