Parents

Directed by BOB BALABAN

Starring RANDY QUAID MARY BETH HURT SANDY DENNIS

1989

Out NOW

Blu-ray

Actor Bob Balaban’s 1989 directorial debut appeared just as some, which stars Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt, manages to carve out a small niche for itself. Working from a script by Christopher Hawthorne, Balaban folds an array comic-horror overtones inward, prompting us to witness its fusion of mundane and macabre sights through the eyes of young Michael, a troubled pre-adolescent given to fevered fantasy projections that are precisely the inverse of what we presume is behind his docile, cryptic gaze. Michael is exactly the age of young boys whose minds are still condensing from the swirling fog of infancy, yet who are also, possibly, able to glimpse the sharpshooter of puberty, lying in wait at an indeterminate distance.