Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

skydvr38 surprisingly, what I thought would be a farce had some interesting depth. What's starts off as lampooning 12 step programs becomes a touching and somewhat tragic ride through recovery. Laced with humor, this is a dry, yet poignant study in recovery from 'our family of origin'. I watched this with several friends and we were stunned at the ending, namely,Stauart did not save all his family because it was their choice not to be saved. As Stuart says, he needed to move on with his life.Its easier to wear slippers than to carpet the whole world. True enough,you cannot fix others, particularly those who do not want to be fixed. Some revel in their misery or are so addicted to it some real peace would be disturbing. D'on't expect a major laugh riot here in this movie, expect the subtleties of humanity and conditions to give you a smirk, a grin,an 'aha' here and there. The real humor comes in Stuarts' journey. I salute the filmmakers for adding some really 'teary' moments.Alcoholism isn't fun. Perhapsthose touched by this disease,particularly those children (grown or not) who still ache from the hurts. You'll cheer Stauart for his own personal choices, not because he couldn't get his father into rehab.

tfrizzell Saturday Night Live routines always find a way to the silver screen and that is unfortunate for the most part. "Stuart Saves His Family" is another pure mess as the titled psychiatrist (the likeable Al Franken) goes home after his aunt's death and tries to keep his family talking to each other, but fireworks just continue going off with what are supposed to be hilarious results. Once again a lack of material just makes the film little more than a very long skit. 2 stars out of 5.

tooteaching This is probably the best of the SNL films simply because there is a back story behind the film. (Unlike the terrible "It's Pat!")Those who watched SNL while Al Franken was on it saw the Smalley character. (His adage: I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and gosh darn it people like me!) In these skits, Smalley (who obviously had had a very difficult life) described his family. (On Halloween "I thought of going as a feeling but what does dread look like really? Other than my mother.") The skits would give the viewer images and makes us wonder how bad this family actually was. Now we know.So many SNL films fail because they stretch a 2 minute skit into ninety minutes. One reviewer called it "Trying to stretch a piece of chewing gum across I-25, sometimes it makes it, most times it doesn't." This movie had great fully developed characters. There was no reason to stretch anything.Al Franken plays the character with such sensitivity and such love and such heart that you can't help feeling for the poor guy. You can tell that this character is a sweet, kind human being who simply never got a decent start in life and is trying to do things right.The scenes going back to Smalley's childhood complete the story. Including the funny scene about the family's trip to California.To those who that this movie is as bad as "It's Pat" I beg to differ."It's Pat" never worked because it was never meant to work.My only regret is that it failed so miserably box office wise and we'll never see a sequel. Al Franken is also no longer on SNL. I miss Stuart.This movie gets an 8 out of 10. It's a great movie. A great movie to watch when you feel sorry for yourself or having a bad day.

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.