Superdad

Most relationships don’t survive college. Even if people go to the same college as one another. In college, you learn who you are in a way you don’t in grade school. And maybe that’s true if you don’t go to college, but I did, so I can’t speak to that. It probably is. You’re an adult, and you’re figuring out who adult you is, and is adult you the same you that high school them fell in love with? Is adult them someone you can be in love with? It’s a lot to think about, and while I do have friends who are still with their high school sweethearts, not a lot of them are. And at least one friend who married her high school sweetheart later divorced him.

Wendy McCready (Kathleen Cody) has been friends with the same group of kids her whole life. Most of them (including 24-year-old Ed Begley Jr.) are simply credited as “The Gang.” However, it’s clear that her relationship with Bart (Kurt Russell), who I’m not sure ever gets a last name, is not on the same level as the goofy Stanley Schlimmer (Bruno Kirby, in his first film role). You know, because we see her making out with him. But her dad, Charlie, wants her to marry up. He arranges for her to attend Huntington College up near San Francisco instead of city college in whatever LA suburb they live in.

The fact is, Charlie’s a snob. We see Wendy brought home from school for a weekend by Roger Rhinehurst (Nicholas Hammond), a law school student, and I don’t know if he’s supposed to be Klan-coded, but he comes across as awfully Klan-coded to me. Oh, Wendy’s group isn’t as diverse as Dexter Riley’s; the closest we come to PoC in it is Bruno Kirby. But when Rhinehurst talks about his daddy the Southern state senator, who wears conservative clothing, I couldn’t help thinking of the Klan. Is that really the life Charlie wants for his daughter?

Charlie watches a show on TV that talks about how parents should befriend their kids to solve the generation gap, and I don’t think that’s quite right, either. But it’s true that Charlie doesn’t bother getting to know any of Wendy’s friends. Her mother, Sue (Barbara Rush), might, but Sue’s not much of a character. This movie isn’t about Sue. Or Wendy, really. It’s about how Charlie handles his daughter’s growing up, and at least part of the problem is that he still thinks of his daughter as an extension of himself. Even when he’s spending time with her, he doesn’t talk to her. Or her friends.

When Wendy goes to college, she studies art. Charlie is disappointed and horrified—almost entirely because he doesn’t want Wendy to marry an artist. His coworker, Ira Kushaw (Dick Van Patten), brags about the three professionals his daughters have married. But are his daughters happy? Did they want to be professionals? Okay, so Wendy loves Bart. But is she planning a life of her own even after they marry? What’s her goal? Does she have talent? We don’t know, because we never see her as anything beyond Daddy’s Little Girl.

In short, no wonder this movie tanked. It’s a G-rated movie about being a parent that doesn’t leave any room for the child to be a character. Bart’s more fleshed out than Wendy is. There’s a huge subplot about Charlie’s work with Cyrus Hershberger (Joe Flynn), a shipping magnate I guess, and how his employees are striking. But what exactly is Charlie supposed to be doing about that? Why are they striking? And who cares? This movie raises a lot of questions, such as why Bruno Kirby’s got that annoying fake grin all the time, but leaves you uninterested in the answers.