Mr. Mom (1983) is a comedy film directed by Stan Dragoti and written by John Hughes. It stars Michael Keaton, Teri Garr, Jeffrey Tambor, Ann Jillian, Christopher Lloyd, and Martin Mull.

Plot outline

The film stars Michael Keaton and Teri Garr as Jack and Carolyn Butler, a middle class couple with three kids living in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Jack loses his engineering job at an automobile manufacturer. Though the auto industry is in a slump, they bet that Jack can get a job before Carolyn, but Jack loses as Carolyn gets hired by an ad agency and he has to stay at home with the kids.

When Carolyn goes off to work, Jack discovers he is clueless about how to manage a household. He falls into depression as his ego and the household fall apart. He also begins socializing a lot with the housewives in his neighborhood, sharing poker games and workout routines with them. Carolyn struggles with being back in the workforce and trying to appease fussy advertising clients who have been notoriously difficult to work with. She successfully pitches an innovative idea for advertising Schooner Tuna and the president of the company is pleased and wants her to fly to Los Angeles to help shoot the commercial.

In the meantime, Jack has snapped out of his depression, getting the house and kids under control. His former employer invites him back for a chance to interview again for his old job, but he finds that his former boss Jinx (Jeffrey Tambor) betrayed his reputation in favour of his own so as to make himself look good in the process. Jack lectures the employer and Jinx on such dirty practices and storms out, but not before threatening Jinx with a knockout punch should Jinx ever speak sharply to his son again (Alex had interrupted the meeting to see what was taking so long). He takes the kids to the bathroom before leaving the building (the babysitter turned out to be a somewhat sketchy-looking character, so Jack brought the kids to the interview) and they are essentially trashing it with toilet paper all over the place while Jack dries off Megan's rear with the hand dryer on the wall. The employer is seen hustling down the hallway with Jinx trailing behind, ostensibly to ask Jack to return to his old job, but upon encountering the scene in the bathroom, we're left to believe that potential offer was retracted. The neighborhood housewives surprise Jack unpleasantly with a visit to a strip club (with male strippers) to take his mind off of things.

Throughout the film, both Jack and Carolyn find themselves fending off the lascivious advances of others. In Carolyn's case, her boss Ron (Martin Mull) tries to convince her to leave Jack and marry him instead, while in Jack's case, one of his and Carolyn's mutual friends Joan (Ann Jillian) tries to seduce him in a less direct manner. After a successful commercial shoot for Schooner Tuna in Los Angeles, Carolyn is relaxing in her hotel bathtub; Ron takes this opportunity to sneak into her room with champagne. Back home, Jack tries calling Carolyn at this exact moment so the kids could talk to her, and Ron picks up the phone instead since Carolyn was in the bathtub. Jack hangs up, thinking Carolyn is having an affair with Ron. Carolyn, not knowing what has just transpired via the phone, confronts Ron and fends off his attempts to seduce her; she ends up punching him in the nose when he won't leave her room. We find out later that she quit her job at this point.

The next day dawns with a couple household repair people in the home to fix a broken tv and spray for bugs. Jack broke the tv by kicking it the night before in a fit of anger over the phone call to Carolyn's hotel room; the tv repairwoman thus finds a shoe lodged in the tv. Joan stops by and while Jack is upstairs in the bathroom cleaning the paint off of his face, Joan makes herself at home in Jack and Carolyn's bedroom with a serving tray containing two glasses and a bottle of liquor. She stretches out on the bed and calls to Jack, and he begins talking to himself in the mirror, running through a list of reasons (numbered A-Z but not alphabetical) why he shouldn't go out to Joan and have an affair with her. Carolyn arrives home unexpectedly, surprising Joan on the bed, and after a confrontation of words, Joan leaves. Carolyn takes Joan's place on the bed, helping herself to a glass of liquor while she waits. Jack doesn't realize Carolyn is home until he finishes with his list (letter 'Z' was "You're not going to do anything, because you, my friend, are in love with your wife") and comes back to the bedroom. They talk over the misunderstandings that occurred concerning Ron and Joan's advances and reunite as a stronger couple.

Soon, Ron stops by the house, begging her to come back to his company, as the Schooner Tuna president has demanded that only she can properly handle his account. However, Carolyn expresses how much she missed spending time with the children. Jinx also comes begging for Jack to return to work. He had made too many cuts in his design team and now could not produce what his managers were demanding and was in danger of losing his job. Alex says something to his father while Jinx is talking and Jinx yells at him, at which point Jack makes good on his earlier promise and punches Jinx in the face.

The ending is somewhat ambiguous as the viewer is left to guess for him/herself what transpires next. We see Jack and Carolyn sitting on the steps inside the home with the kids, and Jinx and Ron in the background talking with the tv repairwoman and the exterminator guy. However, we're not told whether Carolyn agreed to return to Ron's agency nor do we know if Jack returned to work for Jinx. The camera fades on the happy family as they contemplate their options.

External links

IMDB profile

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