The Brady Bunch movie
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The Brady Bunch Movie is a 1995 comedy film adaptation of the
1969-1974 television series The Brady Bunch.
The film features all the original regular characters, all played by
new actors. It also took the unusual route of placing the original
sitcom characters, with their 1970s fashion sense and 1970s sitcom
family morality, in a contemporary 1990s setting, and parodied the
resulting culture clash. The movie was a hit and was followed by A
Very Brady Sequel in 1996, and a television movie called The Brady
Bunch in the White House in 2002
Plot
The film opens with a montage of scenes reflecting life in the
1990s, with heavy traffic, rushing commuters and homeless people on
the street.
Mr. Dittmeyer (Michael McKean), an unscrupulous real estate
developer, explains to his boss that almost all the families in his
neighborhood have agreed to sell their property as part of a plan to
turn the area into a shopping mall. The only exception is one
family, which prompts Dittmeyer's angry boss to ask, "What's their
story?" which leads into the opening blue-box credits of The Brady
Bunch.
The concept of the film is that although it is set in the 1990s, the
Brady Bunch family are still portrayed as their 1970s television
incarnations and are unaware of the disparity between their lives
and their surroundings.
The parents, Mike (Gary Cole) and Carol (Shelley Long) are having
breakfast prepared by their housekeeper Alice (Henriette Mantel)
while the six children prepare for school. Jan (Jennifer Elise Cox)
is jealous of her elder, popular sister Marcia (Christine Taylor);
Cindy (Olivia Hack) is tattling about things she's hearing; Greg
(Christopher Daniel Barnes) is dreaming of becoming a singer; Peter
(Paul Sutera) is nervous that his voice is breaking; Bobby (Jesse
Lee Soffer) is excited about his new role as hall monitor at school.
Cindy fetches Mike and Carol a letter from their neighbors, the
Dittmeyers, that states that the Bradys face foreclosure on their
house if they don't pay $20,000 in back taxes. Mike and Carol
initially brush off the crisis as solvable, but when Mike's
architectural design is turned down by two potential clients, he
tells Carol that they may have to sell the house. Cindy overhears
this and tells the rest of the Brady kids. The Brady kids look for
work to raise money to save the house, but their earnings are
nowhere near enough to reach the required sum.
In a subplot, Marcia is asked by Doug Simpson (Shane Conrad) to go
to the school dance with her, when she has already promised to go
with Charlie (R.D. Robb). Marcia explains the "difficulty" of the
choice to her friend Noreen (Alanna Ubach), unaware that Noreen is a
lesbian and is attracted to Marcia herself. Marcia ends up breaking
her promise to Charlie. On the night of the dance, Doug takes Marcia
to a lookout point where he French kisses her, only for her to say
that she's not interested. Doug abandons her at the side of the
road, but Marcia is rescued when a limousine arrives. Marcia later
arrives at the dance and introduces the star performer of the night,
Davy Jones. He gets a rousing reception from the teachers, and when
the backing rock band charges up his performance, the kids respond,
too. Marcia apologizes to Charlie, who forgives her and asks her to
dance with him.
Mr. Dittmeyer discovers that the Bradys have past-due property taxes
and confronts Mike, only to learn that Mike has finally sold one of
his designs and has the money he needs. Dittmeyer secretly meets
with the client, claiming (falsely) that Mike's design resulted in a
building collapse, which causes Mike to lose his advance.
On the night before the Bradys have to move out, Marcia suggests
that they enter a "Search for the Stars" contest, the prize of which
is exactly $20,000. Jan, having originally suggested this and been
rejected, runs away from home. Cindy sees her leave and tattles, and
the whole family goes on a search for her. They use their car C.B.
radio, and their transmission is heard by Schultzy (Ann B. Davis),
the driver who picks Jan up and convinces her to return home.
The next day the children join the "Search for the Stars" contest
with a dated performance that receives poor audience response
compared to the more modern performances of other bands. However,
the Bradys win because the judges are Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz and
Peter Tork, stars of the 70s themselves. Mr. Dittmeyer's plan is
ruined. The Bradys also convince their neighbors to withdraw their
homes from the market, securing the neighborhood.
The film ends with the arrival of Grandmother Brady (Florence
Henderson), who finally convinces Jan to stop obsessing over Marcia,
only for Cindy to start feeling jealous of Jan.
In the end credits, the Bradys are in their traditional blue boxes,
but updated for the time.
