THIS is a COMEDY?!
Don't get me wrong. I found this in a video store in the mid '90's, and I really love it, but I have no idea why it is marketed as such a wacky comedy. (The cover art on my video is of the family sitting on a couch flying in a tornado, much different than the art shown on the site here.) And now that I've seen the trailer for it, I am doubly confused. As this is NO wacky comedy. In fact, I find very little funny about it. Not even in a mildly disturbing David Lynch sort of way. (Yes, I am aware David Lynch didn't direct this, just using a metaphor or whatever...)
Unless they find a family with mental illness running rampant to be hysterical, and it's not even made to be a funny way, like say, "Benny and Joon" having it's lighter moments. The woman with a child hates her boyfriend/husband and lives in a delusion. If it wasn't for the child, I'd have no idea why the boyfriend would put up with her, unless she was a completely different person before he left for Canada. Her brother's equally delusional (I think the light hearted bit was supposed to be when his father calls him "artistic" instead of nuts) and a bit slow witted. I felt so bad for Howie at the end of the movie, as he didn't have a clue what the heck was going on in his life. Everyone pretty much gets deeply depressed by the end of the movie, reality hits them all too hard. I am still trying to figure out how this is a comedy.
Maybe it's Crispin Glover's singing that's supposed to be the wacky comedy. I dunno. Just seems to be a drama to me, not a comedy.