Welcome to the 7 Levels - I am your host Jordan Smith…your poet Virgil on this journey into the underworld of publicly available streaming movies. Joining us this week are Tim, Brad, Peg and Bekah.
In this week’s Tubi deep dive we wind up with old pal John Candy as he takes on a thin high concept with an excellent supporting cast in Delirious.
Candy always does well with strong ensembles. It’s something in the interplay where he always brings out unconventional line reads and reactions in his co-stars. Dylan Baker, Charles Rocket, Raymond Burr and David Rasche work broadly and get the soap opera fever dream across well. Smaller characters like the producing team of Jerry Orbach and Renee Taylor as Lou and Arlene Sherwood are sharply written as manipulators of the highest order.
The movie slips easily into the “It was all a dream” formula and stalls there in the conventions. It’s clear Candy is controlling reality via typewriter and the script will ask a couple questions about whether he will recognize the wholesome love of Mariel Hemingway or stay infatuated with diabolical Emma Samms. Some easy gags about writing drunk and not being able to let go of that crush on the cheerleader combine with making oneself a world class driver, dancer and lover man.
What makes this all feel a little slight is that taking big, loveable, awkward, painful, hilarious John Candy out of reality - out of the struggle it is to be *that guy* all the time - robs him of his best acting trick and the peaks of his rare, empathy generating talent.
Every TOP tier John Candy performance has that moment where he’s either staring right down the camera barrel or in a dialogue scene with a co-star and he simply lets you in to the struggle of his character and - a lot of people always intuited - the struggle to be John Candy.
You can see why they go to it over and over in his movies. It’s an easy choice to make as a director when you have someone like Candy whose ability to connect any performance to the ocean that is every individual audience member is practically supernatural. They try at it a couple times in Delirious but the soap opera conceit pulls it - we felt - too far from his strengths and doesn’t lean in far enough to the potential.
Oh well, the movie opened with a Prince track and was a relaxing, occasionally guffaw inducing hour and a half.
We then traipsed through a ramshackle couple of rounds of Family Feud to split up some points and then these veteran 7 levels players went right for something we could all really sink our teeth into for next week.
See you next time for the all time classic Groundhog Day!
Our theme is the wicked warehouse version of Futterman’s Rule by Eddie Maneuver
7 Levels - Delirious