Playwright Shores' country-fried comedy is opened up slightly (and pruned) for this low-key filmization. Remsen has suffered a series of mini-strokes and is close to passing away, an oncoming scenario that draws his four children around him, some of who are looking for a chunk of his estate. Lonely hairdresser Harper already lives with Remsen and his mother (!) McClure (in the play, she was his mother-in-law, which made a bit more sense.) Crass, abusive Bridges, Remson's only son, comes to the house with his chubby, but bubbly, wife Darbo. Bible-thumping Wright and oft-married singer D'Angelo complete the sibling quartet. Hippie Reinhold plays the latest of D'Angelo's many conquests. While Remsen slips closer and closer to death, his children bicker and debate about who should get what and who did what to who while simultaneously wondering where the man's last will and testament has landed. Harper does a pretty decent job in one of the less colorful roles. Her hair in frequently inconsistent from frame to frame, but generally she manages to add dimension to her character. Bridges is blustery and appropriately unappealing, though his part comes off as pretty one-dimensional. Darbo fares better as his wife and enjoys scenes of varying degrees of emotion and/or humor. Wright goes for an understated approach to her "praise the lord" type of character and loses a lot of opportunity for laughs (and identification) in the bargain. D'Angelo is excellent at presenting the loose, sleazy, yet needful, person she's asked to take on here while Reinhold tends to be appealing in his offbeat role. McClure's part, a vivid, funny, irascible character on stage is rendered mostly benign in this adaptation and the actress's voice is ill suited to the amusing aspects of the role. What was a tacky, sometimes-rowdy, arresting little comedy on stage is a somnambulistic snooze through most of its running time thanks to a far too laid back directorial style, languid pacing, the removal of various plot threads and lines and a musical score that has basically nothing to do with the time or place nor enhances the action on screen. The comic momentum of the scenes is spoiled by a decision to crosscut action in different locales rather than tell the story in its original form. There are also many lulls in the dialogue and action, with some of the colorful comments removed in the process. Sadly, the actors mostly do not (or were not permitted to) fully inhabit their roles with the necessary gusto to make the film spark. If there's a high point, it would be the burgeoning relationship and the acting scenes between Reinhold and Darbo. It's not a washout, but it's not the rousing, rambunctious comedy it could have been. This same author gave the world "Sordid Lives," which is a bit more outrageous than this story. Carradine appears briefly as a local hunk, a part that was only spoken of in the stage play.
