Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s adaptation of Judi and Ron Barrett’s 1978 children’s book is as subtle as a giant pancake crushing a house. It's always a challenge to take a well loved story and adapt it to film. Often it involves cutting much of the story to make the film a manageable length. Fans of books often react negatively to such changes. Without the exposure of the book, the family and I went into this film with an open mine.
In the movie, it starts out as a gentle story of a grandfather telling a sweet bedtime story to his granddaughter about a town where the weather was always food. Barring the ‘culinary climate’ angle, all the gentleness has gone, replaced by a comically frantic tale of an obsessed young inventor, Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader), who, with his trusted monkey-friend Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), has spent his entire life dedicated to making his wild visions a reality (two of which – a TV with legs and a rat-pigeon crossbreed – figure hilariously in the film's story). His mother Fran (Lauren Graham) was his inspiration, but her passing leaves Flint with only his gruff, insular dad Tim (James Caan) to impress, and that isn’t easy. Later in the story the land’s weather takes the form of food, which in time becomes a problem, forcing the population of Chew and swallow to leave their home. The film has that as a core, but has developed an entire story to explain how that phenomenon came to be—the work of a nerdy inventor, Flint Lockwood, who just wants to make the world a better place. His inventions through the years have been busts. His latest machine makes food out of water, but when it goes ballistic and ends up in the clouds, the weather turns to food first by raining cheeseburgers, really cute.
Along the way, the story gives me something of a basic introduction to sin. I found it interesting that six of the attitudes often called the Seven Deadly Sins made their way into this story. Brent, the town celebrity, is the embodiment of sloth and hubris. The Mayor is a combination of greed, gluttony, and envy. Earl (Mr. T), the town policeman, often reflects anger, even though he also has a soft and loving side. (The deadly sin missing is lust.) Each of these "deadly sins" brings complications to the story, just as they inevitably bring sorrow into life.
The family and I did embrace the craziness of its central premise, Cloudy delivers a surprisingly appetizing dish of fast-paced lunacy, sprinkled with some memorable characters for instance Mr. T’s and peppered with great one-liners. (Look out for the TV anchorman who remarks on the fact that Flint’s malfunctioning doohickey, in true Armageddon fashion, strikes familiar national landmarks first before moving on to surrounding areas.) There are lots of good messages that can be taken from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – follow your dreams; stay true to yourself; remember what’s most important are family and friends. All the usual ones that have puffed up kids films for a century now, and they still work and are always welcome when handled well.
But the added bonus in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is the inspired lunacy of its laughs – the big spoonful of sugar that makes the moral medicine palatable, even negligible. It is the ideal confection for the sweet-toothed youngster or the parent desperate for a guilty indulgence.
