To feel sorry for Sally Field's character in Mrs Doubtfire?

[Onlyaprawn]

DH thinks I am strange to have sympathy for Sally Field's character and think that Robin Williams' parenting is irresponsible. She ends up looking like the bad guy when she is just trying to do the right thing. He says he doesn't understand me - AIBU?

YANBU.

YADNBU. We re-watched it not so king ago and I was horrified!!

King = long 🙄

She's being reasonable, rational and sensible.

It's not like the film totally craps all over her, though. There's certainly an acknowledgement that she had a lot to put up with, and she gets to bag an in-his-prime Brosnan, so she doesn't do too badly...

HollowTalk I think the point with Kramer vs Kramer is that the lawyers made it all really ugly and it actually led to a thawing between the warring couple, because they didn’t like what was happening. Dustin Hoffman wouldn’t appeal and then Meryl Streep backed down, despite having been awarded custody, and allowed their son to stay where he was. So it was actually a really positive ending.

I agree with you all about Sally Field’s character in Mrs Doubtfire. And actually she is portrayed quite sympathetically, whereas Robin Williams’s character was a bit of a dick (although his love for his kids was obviously genuine).

Robin Williams is very good at that type of role, he’s a similarly useless father most of the way through the film Hook as well.

I'm watching this and suddenly wondering how Mrs Doubtfire got paid without Miranda working it out? I guess cash? (This has never occurred to me before despite watching it a million times)

Yes she has to play the grown up and be the bad guy which isn’t fair! And what he does is so manipulative.

Agree about War of the Roses being the best divorce film

" i recommend skipping the fish course"

YADNBU. I loved it as a kid and I don’t mind it as an adult but I view it and the messages it sends with very very different eyes.

As a child, I thought Robin William’s character was amazing.

As an adult, I question how or why she stay married to him so long. He’s an irresponsible, emotionally manipulative psychopath who should have gone to prison or to a secure facility.

What baffles me is how she apparently doesn't know her own ex husband.

I'd know my DH under any amount of "drag".

Is she a bit thick ?

I seem to remember from the book (though it’s a long time since I’ve read it) that the kids knew from the off and he (the dad) got them to do the housework and stuff?

I don’t think she was portrayed unsympathetically, there was no doubt about how much he loved the kids and you could see in her face when the judgement was passed that she knew it would devastate him. It was the push he needed to grow up and be responsible and she was able to find happiness while they successfully co-parented.

In the book both parents come across awful.

Anne Fine hates the film. She wrote characters who were divorced for a reason, but the film makes the dad so loveable it destroys her original intention - as a previous poster points out it is a brilliant book about divorced parents and all of the real tensions and struggles (albeit with a funny spin).

I feel for her. He was a man child and then screws up her life after they separate.
She was entitled to a bit of Pierce Brosnan and he obviously adored her and the kids.
Mind you, who invites the nanny to a birthday celebration and her childcare expectations were unfair.
Perhaps they should have allowed the father some access at the start and he wouldn’t have gone as bonkers as he did.