Info

• Scarlett As: Laura Nelson
• Other Cast: Elijah Wood, Bruce Willis, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus
• Directed by: Rob Reiner
• Written by: Alan Zweibel and Andrew Scheinman
• Release Year: 1994
• Genre: Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Family and Fantasy
• Rating: PG (usa) / PG (uk)
• Filming locations: Caldwell, New Jersey, USA
• Production companies: Castle Rock Entertainment | Columbia Pictures | New Line Cinema

Sypnosis

Eleven-year-old North has had it with his parents. They are always busy with their careers and don’t give North the attention he needs, so he files a lawsuit against them. The judge rules that North should either find new parents or return to his own parents within two months. Thus North starts off on a hilarious journey around the world to find the parents who really care about him.

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Trailer

Trivia & Facts

• The acting debuts of Scarlett Johansson and Kelly Cooper.
• Although she has become one of the most successful film actresses, and despite this film’s bad reputation, Scarlett Johansson said in an interview that working on this film and with Rob Reiner was “a magical experience” for her as an 8-year-old.
• Scarlett Johansson and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are both alumni of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Johansson as The Black Widow and Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
• Following Roger Ebert’s 2013 death, Alan Zweibel wrote a piece for the New Yorker entitled “Roger and Me”, in which he recounted bumping into Ebert, introducing himself, then saying “And I just have to tell you, Roger, that sweater you’re wearing? I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate that sweater.” Then they both laughed and shook hands.
• This is the sole film appearance of Brynn Hartman, wife–and murderer–of Phil Hartman.
• Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel has named this one of the worst films they’d ever reviewed. Ebert wrote “I hated this movie. Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.” Ebert later went on to say that the movie made him “cringe… just sitting here thinking about it.” Siskel said that it made him feel “unclean.” The clip of their review would go on to become a popular Internet meme associated with bad movie reviews. When Rob Reiner was roasted at the New York Friar’s Club, he read the review and said, “If you read between the lines, [the review] isn’t really that bad.” Screenwriter Alan Zweibel keeps a clipping of the review in his wallet, sometimes reading it at public appearances. Ebert’s review eventually became so notorious (arguably more so than the film itself) that he later released a collection of negative reviews titled “I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie.”
• Screenwriter Alan Zweibel’s son attended school with the son of Hollywood “superagent” Michael Ovitz. One day, the two got into a verbal altercation in which Ovitz’s son said (as an insult) “Your dad wrote ‘North’!” Zweibel was happy to learn that his son responded with “At least people like my father!”
• Kathy Bates disliked the script initially and was also advised to turn down the movie by her agent. She only agreed to appear because she felt indebted to Rob Reiner as he had directed her to an Oscar winning performance four years earlier in Misery (1990). She felt working with Reiner again was necessary as her way of saying thank you for Reiner’s help in her winning the Oscar.
• John Candy was cast as Pa Tex because he really wanted to work with Rob Reiner and was a fan of the director, but he found the stereotypes in the script to be insulting and he passed. Reiner eventually cast Candy’s good friend Dan Aykroyd instead. Although Candy and Reiner never got the opportunity to work together on a film before Candy’s untimely passing in March 1994, Reiner’s father Carl Reiner directed Candy in Summer Rental (1985).
• The Amish parents are played by Kelly McGillis and Alexander Godunov, who starred together in Witness (1985), which prominently features the lifestyle of the Amish.
• Bruce Willis initially disliked the script and nearly passed on appearing in the film. He was persuaded by his then-wife Demi Moore, who had just been directed by Rob Reiner in the hugely-successful A Few Good Men (1992). This film flopped and although Willis’ career remained stable, Reiner made very few hits after this film. Willis, Reiner, and Alan Zweibel reunited five years later for The Story of Us (1999), which was also financially and critically unsuccessful but managed to make a profit and had slightly better reviews.

Box office

• Budget: $40,000,000 (estimated)
• Opening weekend US & Canada: $3,036,050
• Gross US & Canada: $7,182,747
• Gross worldwide: $7,182,747

Goofs

• When the lawyer, Arthur Bell, meets North for the first time on the street, he hands North his card and promptly takes it back. In the next shot, North is still holding the card. At that point, Mr. Bell reaches to shake North’s hand (which is still holding the card) and in the next shot the card disappears again.
• The divorce trial moves forward even though both of North’s parents are catatonic. No Judge worth their salt would allow a trial of any sort to move forward when the defendants are clearly physically and vocally unable to defend themselves and would be deemed unfit for trial.
• Despite providing an extensive definition of Borscht, the movie fails to acknowledge the fact that it’s a soup, so it’s mostly liquid and unsuitable for distribution via cartons.
• When North’s Alaskan family is walking their grandfather to the shore, the ceiling of the studio the scene is filmed in is visible.
• When North is being chased through a New York airport, he passes a neon eagle on the wall. This eagle is in the Los Angeles airport.
• North behaves very out of character during the Amish scene, instantly bailing and not even giving them a chance because of their primitive lifestyle. All he was after was a family to love and appreciate him, and up until that point, the families he’d been with had unreasonable expectations of him, so whether or not the Amish family lived without electricity would be irrelevant.

Tech specs

• Runtime: 1h 27m(87 min)
• Color: Color
• Sound mix: Dolby DigitalSDDS
• Aspect ratio: 1.85 : 1