Mrs. Doubtfire

Mrs. Doubtfire
File:MrsDoubtfireMoviePoster.jpg Mrs. Doubtfire DVD Cover
Directed by	Chris Columbus
Written by	Anne Fine (novel), Randi Mayem Singer Leslie Dixon (screenplay)
Starring	Robin Williams Sally Field Pierce Brosnan Harvey Fierstein
Cinematography	Donald McAlpine, ASC
Music by	Howard Shore
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	November 24, 1993
Running time	125 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

Mrs. Doubtfire (or Madame Doubtfire) is an Academy Award-winning 1993 comedy film based on the novel Alias Madame Doubtfire by Anne Fine. It was directed by Chris Columbus and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It won the Academy Award for Best Makeup, and was also rated #39 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies Of All Time.

Plot

The story takes place in the city of San Francisco. Robin Williams plays Daniel Hillard, an out-of-work voice actor (who quit his job over his objections to showing cartoon characters smoking cigarettes and enjoying them) with extraordinary imitative skills, whose interior decorator spouse Miranda has reached the end of her patience with their marriage, due to his irresponsibility. The breaking point is a birthday party Daniel throws for their twelve year old son Christopher behind Miranda's back (which Miranda had forbidden because of Christopher's bad report card), which includes a petting zoo and twenty children running around the Hilliard household. Since Daniel has no steady source of income (as Miranda was the main breadwinner of the family), Miranda gets primary custody of their three children (fourteen-year-old Lydia, twelve-year-old Chris and five-year-old Natalie) and Daniel has visitation rights limited to Saturday evenings. The news is crushing to Daniel, who adores his children.

When Daniel learns Miranda intends to place an advertisement for a housekeeper, he requests to pick them up from school and spend time with them. The children are receptive, but Miranda nixes the idea. Daniel sabotages the ad Miranda wrote by changing the phone number, so that he is the only one who can apply. He calls Miranda a number of times, disguising his voice while pretending to be an unsuitable applicant (a mundane rocker, a German man apparently sex-changed to female, a redneck, and a Spaniard). He finally presents the perfect applicant: a 60 year old widow from London with years of experience, giving the name "Mrs. Doubtfire" after reading the news headline "Police Doubt Fire Was Accidental". With the cosmetics skills of his brother (Harvey Fierstein), a makeup artist, his brother's partner, and his own acting talent, Daniel goes to the Hillard residence as Euphegenia Doubtfire. He takes advantage of knowing his family's passions, bringing up storytelling to his youngest daughter Natalie and soccer to Chris, and so is quickly offered the job. As Mrs. Doubtfire, Daniel is able to see his children every day, giving him the opportunity to be the firm father figure that he wasn't before the divorce. He initially has the children doing chores and homework, but still finds time to join them in their favorite activities, including reading stories, soccer, and bike rides. The difference shows in the three children, and Miranda remarks one night that something about Mrs. Doubtfire is very familiar.

Daniel goes through a series of mishaps, including setting fire to his fake breasts when trying unsuccessfully to cook dinner and attempting to stall his ex-wife's relationship with Stuart Dunmeyer (Pierce Brosnan), her new boyfriend. When Stuart criticizes the children's father by calling him a loser, Daniel (as Mrs. Doubtfire) secretly throws a lime at his head, and then blames it on the bar staff ("It was a run-by fruiting!").

File:Mrs. Doubtfire.jpg

Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) disguised as Mrs. Doubtfire (having just lost his dentures).

Daniel's cover is blown when Chris walks in on him standing at the toilet; he then explains the situation to the two elder children, as Natalie wouldn't be able to keep such a big secret. Both children are happy to have their father back in their lives and so eagerly agree to keep up the pretense. Daniel's double life ends when his two personalities are forced to come together. The CEO of the television studio, Jonathan Lundy (Robert Prosky), where Daniel works as a shipping clerk, sees him clowning with toy dinosaurs and is impressed enough to schedule a dinner meeting to hear his ideas. Miranda then invites Mrs. Doubtfire to dinner with Stuart and the family, at the exact same time and place as Daniel's business dinner. Daniel cannot cancel on either, so he changes clothes in the bathroom while going back and forth between his boss and his family, progressively getting more and more drunk and confused. Intending to get revenge on Stuart, Daniel sneaks into the restaurant kitchen and adds cayenne pepper to Stuart's prepared dish of jambalaya, to which Stuart is allergic. Upon consuming his food, Stuart begins to choke, forcing a guilty Daniel (as Mrs. Doubtfire), to perform abdominal thrusts on him to avert his death. Stuart is saved, but Daniel is exposed: during a particularly rough thrust, Daniel's mask is partially ripped off. Miranda is first shocked and then horrified to learn that her beloved housekeeper is really her ex-husband.

In family court, Daniel acts as his own attorney and confesses his need to be with his children, but the sympathetic judge finds Daniel's behavior disturbing, and custody is awarded solely to Miranda. She and the children all miss Daniel, and one day they see Aunt Euphegenia's House, a new children's TV show of which Daniel (as Mrs. Doubtfire) is the star. This evidence leads Miranda to renegotiate the terms of custody with Daniel, and since they still love each other, they agree to stop arguing and work together for the sake of their children and come to terms with an amicable joint custody arrangement. Miranda will not seek a housekeeper/caretaker while she is at work in the afternoons, instead arranging for the children to spend that time with Daniel. The film concludes with Daniel picking up his kids and Miranda watching an episode of Aunt Euphegenia's House, which features advice to children of divorced parents, saying that no matter what type of family living arrangement children have, love will maintain the bond.

Proposed alternate ending

According to Williams, the studio had wanted the parents to be reunited and remarried in the final reel, but he, Field, and Columbus resisted this, thinking it too unrealistic and likely to give false hope to the children of divorced parents.

Cast

• Robin Williams as Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire
• Sally Field as Miranda Hillard
• Pierce Brosnan as Stuart 'Stu' Dunmeyer
• Harvey Fierstein as Uncle Frank Hillard
• Polly Holliday as Gloria Chaney
• Lisa Jakub as Lydia 'Lydie' Hillard
• Matthew Lawrence as Christopher 'Chris' Hillard
• Mara Wilson as Natalie 'Nattie' Hillard
• Robert Prosky as Jonathan Lundy
• Anne Haney as Mrs. Sellner (The Social Worker)
• Scott Capurro as Aunt Jack Hillard
• Martin Mull as Miranda's Partner At Work
• Robin Williams' half brother Todd makes a cameo appearance in the pool scene as Todd the bartender. He is credited as Dr. Toad.

Locations

Various locations in San Francisco were used for filming. The street signs for the intersection near the "Painted Lady" home, Steiner and Broadway, were visible on-screen. The exact address, 2640 Steiner Street, became a tourist attraction for a while after the film's release.

Box office

Box office performance

Box Office Revenue
United States	International	Total	Reference
$219,195,243	$222,000,000	$441,195,243

Sequel

Mrs. Doubtfire 2 was due to be a sequel to the 1993 box office hit. Writing began in 2005 by Bonnie Hunt (Cheaper by the Dozen, Cars, Jumanji). Robin Williams was set to return in disguise as an old nanny like in the first movie. Due to problems with the script, re-writing began in early 2006 as Robin Williams was allegedly unhappy with the plot. The film was expected to be released in late 2007, but following further script problems the sequel was declared "scrapped" in mid-2006.

Recently in an interview for Newsday, Williams said the movie's sequel was indefinitely scrapped. Stating his reasons, he said, "The script they had just didn't work.".

Apparently, the sequel's story involved Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire moving close to his daughter's college so he could keep an eye on her.

On December 5, 2006, during an interview with BBC Radio 1 by DJ Edith Bowman, Williams said that if it's not going to be done right, then it's not worth doing and that there won't be a sequel with him in it. However, the character might return in some form some day in the future. The interview doesn't seem to have been recorded but was posted online almost immediately.

The film was classed as "stalled" for a brief period, but it now seems that the project will not occur and has even been removed from the IMDb website.

References in other media

• Mrs. Doubtfire appears briefly in the animated Disney film Aladdin and the King of Thieves as one of the shapes the Genie (voiced by Williams) briefly takes.
• In Canada, during its later cinema showings, the film was dropped down to a PG rating.
• On The Simpsons episode "Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious", Marge has a mental breakdown and decides to hire a nanny by holding auditions. Homer comments: "I thought nannies were men in drag"
• A subplot in season two of Arrested Development featured Tobias dressing up as "Mrs. Featherbottom" to get closer to his family and prove to his wife that he was a talented actor. The narrator points out that this is exactly same as the plot of Mrs. Doubtfire.
• The Chaser's War on Everything did a parody of Mrs. Doubtfire with Adolf Hitler being forced to dress up as a housekeeper in order to see his kids. In the parody, Hitler's wife is Eva Braun and the director of the film is Leni Riefenstahl. Hitler is portrayed as an incompetent housekeeper such as when he leaves the gas on which is a reference to his methods of gassing prisoners in the concentration camps.
• The Bollywood movie Chachi 420 is a remake of Mrs Doubtfire.
• The Kollywood movie Avvai Shanmughi is a remake of Mrs Doubtfire in Tamil Language Starring Kamal Hassan and Meena.
• Towards the end of the first episode of Charmed you can see Prue holding a newspaper that reads "Police Doubt Fire was Accidental", the same newspaper that Daniel used to come up with a name.
• In an episode of Beavis and Butt-head, Beavis notices Robin Williams making a cameo in a music video and exclaims "Whoa, check it out, it's Mrs. Doubt-FIRE!". Because he is a pyromaniac, he tends to emphasize the word "fire" a lot, and it is no exception in this case.
• In an episode of Lizzie McGuire, the family needs a baby-sitter for the night. In response, the dad asks, "Where's Mrs. Doubtfire when you need her?"
• In an episode of The Critic, Franklin Sherman dresses up in drag and calls himself Mrs. Doubtfranklin. He says, "Watch me lose my false teeth and set my bosoms on fire!"

Comparisons with book

During the conversion to film, most of the characters were moderated heavily, possibly for the purposes of making a feel-good film. In the book, all the main characters, apart from Natalie, tend to act in self-interest and expect a large amount of credit whenever they do otherwise. The divorce of Miranda and Daniel in the book is also much more bitter.

See also

• Cross-dressing in film and television
• Avvai Shanmughi, the 1996 re-make in Tamil
• Chachi 420, the 1998 re-make in Hindi

External links

• Mrs. Doubtfire at IMDb
• Movie stills