annuskavdpol This movie, Stuart saves his family, is about dysfunction. Stuart is especially incongruent. When his family members insult him and emotionally pierce him by putting him down, he smiles at them. This indicates that Stuart is out of touch with his emotions. Another way of communicating with his facial gestures would be to acknowledge the pain that he just encountered, and to try to take ownership of it. This way he leads by example. And validates his real feeling versus putting up a fake front. Stuart is perceived as a hero in the movie but he is not because he did not find his own way. Instead he started judging his father versus helping him. Abondonment is often not the answer to dysfunction, as it creates more emotional distress. Perhaps it was not the intention of the film director to show a movie about what not to do, but I think it is a great example of a fallacy in humanity, I.e. to leave the one who you care most about behind.

alba500 This is one of best comedies of all times. The psychology of the main character is very incisive and realistic. However it is put in a grotesque context. Other characters are also very true to life or rather caricatures of certain types of people. The brother and the father of the main character seem to bring up the politically correct goofiness and dorkines of Al Franken. The Mother cuts also a very real and yet exaggerated person. The plot flows well and the whole dysfunctional family is funny and sad at the same time. The friends of Al Franken are also funny in their pseudo psychological babble and pretense. I find this film to be so good that I have bought the DVD.

haroldnmaude I was channel-surfing one afternoon and "Stuart Saves His Family" was on HBO. Being a bit of a masochist, I thought I'd stay and see how embarrassingly bad it was going to be (as most SNL-character-inspired movies are) and was pleasantly surprised. Anyone who is or knows someone who is in any of the 12-step programs will appreciate this movie and show it to all your friends. It has a stellar cast and Al Franken is an underrated genius.

bob the moo Stuart Smalley is a new-age self help guru with a line in catchphrases `I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dog-gone it, people like me!'. When his show on public-access cable is cancelled he falls into a depression, however a family death brings him back to his home town where he finds that his family have enough issues to keep him busy for months.Stuart Smalley was created by Al Franken for Saturday Night Live. In the UK we've never seen this so I can only imagine that Stuart is used to poke fun at self-help, therapy etc - and I imagine that in 3 minute sketches that he can be very good. However stretched out to 90 minutes it doesn't cut the mustard. The story allows for some funny moments - mainly the flashback scenes where Stuart recalls instances in his family life. However the majority of the film is given over to drama and sentiment as the family deal with their issue. This sentiment is poorly handled and doesn't sit well at all. Even if this was a normal film, which it isn't, it wouldn't work, however building this drama round a spoof character makes it even less workable.I really wanted to like this but I'm afraid that it just wasn't very funny. From Saturday Night Live I expected much more laughs - even of the hit and miss style. However I chuckled 3 or 4 times and that was it. Franken plays Stuart like a mockery of himself and does manage to squeeze some jokes out of the material, but he can't make the character do drama at all. The rest of the cast are filled with plenty of well-known faces (Laura San Giacomo, D'Onofrio, Harris Yulin) and a great comedy director in Ramis, but none of them can really do much with the material.As much as I wanted to like this, this is just yet another failed movie project to come from the occasionally successful Saturday Night life stable.