March 8, 2025

Happy Gilmore

Back in the mid-late 1990s, I thought I was too cool for crass Adam Sandler comedies: Thirty years ago this week my girlfriend dragged me to see Billy Madison. I saw Punch-Drunk Love in 2003, and  You Don't Mess With The Zohan in 2008, and that's been it for a long time.

I've been showing my older son PG-13 movies since he was 11 or 12 (he's 15 now), and sometimes it's okay for his little brother (10) to join us. "Adam Sandler movies" was a thing at school recently, so Emily and I decided to give this one a try. I was confident the sex and language would not be a problem, and that turned out ok. Gilmore has a one-night stand with an elderly neighbor that's totally underplayed, Gilmore signs some ladies' breasts in full closeup, and Julie Bowen appears in two dream sequences in 1990s lingerie. 

I was more concerned about racist and homophobic jokes - I recall Zohan being very problematic by 2025 standards, and thankfully, there was none of that here.

The end result? I had a lot of fun, Sandler's "kindhearted goof with rage management issues" is endearing and surprisingly charming. The boys loved all the pratfalls and yelling. Pete hates movie villains who seem to be "getting away with it", no matter how much we promise they've got it coming to them. When Shooter McGavin shows up at Gilmore's grandma's foreclosure auction and steals away her house, I thought Pete was going to blow his top! He remained torqued up the rest of the evening. McGavin gets beaten to a pulp offscreen, but I think Peter would have preferred an onscreen pummeling.