The Money Pit (1986)

"Mr. Shrapp? Hi, Walter Fielding... Hey, watch what you say about my mother, now."

Now we're getting to the good stuff.

It's really not great to be Walter Fielding. His father takes off with the money from the business and his new young bride, leaving his son to pick up the pieces. He lives with his commitmentphobe girlfriend Anna (Shelley Long) in an apartment belonging to her conductor ex-husband Max (Alexander Godunov), who, surprise surprise, has just returned from overseas ahead of schedule, forcing Walter and Anna to vacate and find new lodgings PDQ. They find a gorgeous old mansion on the market for a price that seems too good to be true, and... well, we all know how that turns out. The ensuing 91 minutes see Walter faced with crooked contractors, an angry building inspector, his unease over Max's overtures toward Anna, all played out against the backdrop of a crumbling ruin of a manor that seems hellbent on killing him.

This is the Hanks I've been waiting for. The circumstances surrounding poor Walter, in and of themselves, are enough to tempt the viewer to shower him in Home Depot gift cards, but he handles his situation with equal parts comedic hysterics when things fall apart and charming gleeful enthusiasm when they come together. In fact, Hanks' maniacal laughter when the bathtub crashes through two floors turned out to be so iconic that tour guides on the Universal Studios backlot tours often play a clip of it when joking with tourists. While Splash came close, I feel that this was the very first time in Hanx's film catalog to date where he put his feet into a character's shoes and felt completely at home. In Walter, he seemed to have found a kindred spirit, an intellectual, a romantic, and at times a manic just barely clinging to his sanity - after all, haven't we all had moments where the bathtub crashed through the floor and we had to laugh like idiots because we were too afraid of what might happen to us if we didn't? God knows I have.

The other bright spot for me in this film was Alexander Godunov, who plays Max, Anna's shallow, self-absorbed ex who also happens to be the demanding conductor of the orchestra in which she plays. He spends the entirety of the movie trying to get Anna back, succeeding only in getting her to spend the night at his place with the lure of running water in the form of a hot bath. It'd be easy to hate Max if he didn't make his lechery so unabashedly transparent. Toward the end of the film he even remarks to Walter, "You've taken a woman who loves you, one of the great women in the world and thrown her away. I lost her too, but I will get over it because I am shallow and self-centered. But you, you wont, because you are 'complex'." In the end, it's Max who sets the turmoil between Anna and Walter straight, and there's a strange glimmer of warmth lurking between his imposing stature and his stern Nordic features. It's no wonder that Godunov accepted this role when he'd turned down so many others for fear of being typecast as the sort of menacing villain he went on to portray in Die Hard. In truth, Godunov was a shy, unassuming performer who'd danced with the Bolshoi Ballet and, after seeking asylum from the KGB, the American Ballet Theatre. He was, perhaps, in his element here, slipping easily into the role of a consummate artist bent on perfection.

And then there's Shelley Long. I have decidedly mixed feelings about Shelley Long. I actually loved her as the original clueless rich housewife in Troop Beverly Hills (don't you judge me). As a Boston girl, I loved Cheers, although Long's performance in her best-known role as barman Sam's unattainable conquest was on its own rather insufferable. The one and only thing that saved it for me was the undeniable chemistry between her and Ted Danson, which only left me feeling all the more ripped off when she left the show. In The Money Pit, there isn't a whole lot to like about Anna on paper. She refuses to marry Walter because of her hangups with her failed marriage to Max, she's not terribly sympathetic to his struggles with the house, and for a time there's an assumption that she's cheated on Walter with Max, which later proves to be untrue. Still, perhaps because of these factors, there's a distinct lack of chemistry between the two, and the final scene that culminates in their marriage has me cheering only for the fact that the remodel of the house is finished. Oh, Walter. I hope you got a prenup.

Overall, The Money Pit is a great deal of fun, and a beacon of hope for good things to come. There was certainly a thing or two I wasn't crazy about (damn you, Anna), but there's more to appreciate about this film than there is to criticize, and that's partly because of the mastery of Hanx, the nuances of Godunov, and the pipe dream all we middle-class dwellers have of finding a fixer-upper for a song, as the viewership of HGTV can well attest. Incidentally, if you're feeling indulgent, the mansion featured in the film is currently for sale, for a cool $5.9 million. Go ahead. Treat yo self. Just don't say we didn't warn you.