This movie, Stuart saves his family, is about dysfunction. Stuart is especially incongruent. When his family members insult him and emotionally pierce him by putting him down, he smiles at them. This indicates that Stuart is out of touch with his emotions. Another way of communicating with his facial gestures would be to acknowledge the pain that he just encountered, and to try to take ownership of it. This way he leads by example. And validates his real feeling versus putting up a fake front. Stuart is perceived as a hero in the movie but he is not because he did not find his own way. Instead he started judging his father versus helping him. Abondonment is often not the answer to dysfunction, as it creates more emotional distress. Perhaps it was not the intention of the film director to show a movie about what not to do, but I think it is a great example of a fallacy in humanity, I.e. to leave the one who you care most about behind.

"Stuart Saves His Family" came out before I had heard of Al Franken, so I took no notice. After I read Franken's book "Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot and Other Observations", I decided to check it out. It turns out that there's not really very much here. Franken plays Stuart Smalley, a character from "Saturday Night Live", and the movie portrays him having a crazy family. Why do movies and TV shows always seem to portray families as nearly mental? I actually giggled when he resorts to name-calling ("You are a big...!), but it seemed like the movie didn't have much of a point beyond that. Then again, few "SNL" skits make good movies. Of course, I might just be too tough on Al Franken; having read his political satires, I expect the highest quality from him.So I don't recommend it. I do think that Al Franken would make a really good senator (in case you haven't heard, he's running for senate in Minnesota), but for entertainment, he should stick to mocking the Bush administration and right-wing commentators.

I picked this up mostly because I recall the Sat Night Live skits as being good. Unfortunately, stretching this lame plot out to feature length is all that Franken did, and it left us feeling just ripped off, and certainly not entertained.Franken's humor, ham-handed and obvious at its best, occasionally works for short bursts, but this guy apparently just doesn't understand writing or plot development when it gets past the three-minute mark, and he apparently feels everyone is too dumb for subtlety. I knew kids like this in junior high school and always felt sorry for them. But I didn't want to spend over five minutes with them, either. Sympathy only goes so far.Mercifully, the generally pitiful reception this film got should encourage Franken to stick to three-minute schtick for high-school audiences.Don't pay money to see this thing, whatever you do.

I really liked this movie. And no, I have never been in a 12 step program. But we all know people like this and we all share some of these experiences. But beside all that, it is funny. Al Franken is excellent. Julia Sweeney's "I'm sorry" character is hysterical. Sure it's a little movie but great if you are interested in human behavior.