Word: tomlin
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They would proceed from a strong premise-The Incredible Shrinking Man, a deadpan 1957 sci-fi thriller-and give it a feminist twist. While the original protagonist shrank from a dose of radiation, Tomlin's happy homemaker would suffer from exposure to the mysterious ingredients in supermarket products: everything from "tumescent tissue of bull scrotum" to a mad scientist's most corrosive chemicals. The audience would know when to laugh: at the sight of a madcap chase, at a friendly gorilla, at Talk Show Host Mike Douglas. The resulting movie is sometimes very funny. It also represents...
Directed by Joel Schumacher Screenplay by Jane Wagner Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner are determined that this time nothing shall go wrong. Their last film, Moment by Moment, about an affair between a bored housewife (Tomlin) and a young drifter (John Travolta), was the movie catastrophe of 1978. Now they would play it safe by playing it funny...
...Lily Tomlin aspires to Chaplinesque heights of comic intuition and craftsmanship. As a movie performer. Tomlin has every other American comedian beat--the nebbishness of Woody Allen, the manic antics of Mel Brooks, and the shrill flightiness of Goldie Hawn cannot come close. Such comics lack Tomlin's mastery of the subtle comic flourish, the slight gesture or tiny twitch that not only reveals character but grabs the Big Laugh as well...
...Kramer--the suburban housewife who finds herself shrinking as a result of over-exposure to the many mysterious chemicals in the innumerable deodorants, detergents, dishwashing liquids, hairsprays, etc., that she can't live without--Tomlin is this year's model of Suzy Homemaker. Struggling to maintain an efficient, happy household, Pat Kramer is the confused, vaguely liberated woman; her license plate reads MS. MOM, Well-versed in pop culture and self-improvement jargon, Pat wants to be the Complete Woman, the mother-lover-maid with her own personal space and identity and everything else Phil Donahue's guests tell...
...Tomlin's party from the first frame to the last. She delivers several abysmally stupid lines with such true conviction that you're forced to, at least, let out a light chuckle. If only Shrinking Woman could have maintained the comic intelligence that Tomlin displays, it could have been a much needed clever satire. But instead, it lacks the courage to fulfill its initial convictions. Schumacher and Wagner would have been better off leaving clever Simians to Tarzan and Clint Eastwood...