Line #21 Film/North


1	[[quoteright:296:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Northposter.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:296:[[OverlyNarrowSuperlative The classic boy-travels-world-to-find-less-neglectful-parents film.]]]]
3
4	''North'' is a 1994 fantasy film directed by Creator/RobReiner in what he stated was an attempt to make his own ''[[Film/TheWizardOfOz Wizard of Oz]]''. The story is [[TheFilmOfTheBook based on]] the novel ''North: The Tale of a 9-Year-Old Boy Who Becomes a Free Agent and Travels the World in Search of the Perfect Parents'' by Alan Zweibel, who also wrote the screenplay and has a minor role in the film.
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6	An 11-year-old boy named North (Creator/ElijahWood) tires of his parents (Creator/JasonAlexander and [[Creator/JuliaLouisDreyfus Julia Louis-Dreyfus]]), [[ParentalNeglect who never pay any attention to him]] even though he's a model student, athlete, and even actor. He [[EmancipatedChild legally emancipates himself from them]], and [[WalkingTheEarth wanders around the world seeking a new family]] with a deadline of Labor Day; if he doesn't find a new family by then, he will be placed in an orphanage.
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8	Along the way, he encounters parents from a wide variety of backgrounds (Texan, Alaskan, Hawaiian, Amish, etc.), and tries to blend in with each group of parents (well, not the Amish). He finally decides that his own parents are the best with the help of a guardian angel (Creator/BruceWillis) who uses [[PaperThinDisguise several guises throughout the film]]. However, a conniving kid friend of his, Winchell, uses the publicity North's escapades garnered to rally kids everywhere to make their parents more subservient to them. Knowing that North reconciling with his parents would undermine this, he plots to have him killed.
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10	This is the film that famously caused Creator/RogerEbert to write, "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it." (This rant later inspired the title of his first published collection of bad reviews -- and [[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/roger-and-me Alan Zweibel just had to discuss said review as an eulogy for Ebert]].)
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12	Not related to the film ''Film/ElNorte'', or ''WesternAnimation/NormOfTheNorth'' (a film of [[DamnedByFaintPraise slightly superior quality]]). This film was also Creator/ScarlettJohansson's film debut. Additionally, Creator/JussieSmollett plays a small role in the film.
13	----
14	!!Provides Examples Of:
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16	* ActorAllusion: The Amish couple is played by Alexander Godunov and Kelly [=McGillis=], a reference to their roles in ''{{Film/Witness}}''.
17	** Also, Creator/JasonAlexander and Creator/JuliaLouisDreyfus acting together. [[Series/{{Seinfeld}} Sounds familiar ?]]
18	* AdaptationTitleChange: Downplayed. The film keeps the original novel's title but omits the overly long subtitle "The Tale of a 9-Year-Old Boy Who Becomes a Free Agent and Travels the World in Search of the Perfect Parents".
19	* AdultsAreUseless: Save for the American family North comes across, Bruce Willis characters and arguably North's real parents. Nearly all the adults here are either stupid, corrupt, manipulative or all three.[[spoiler:Considering this is North dreaming and him being a kid, well...]]
20	* AllJustADream: [[spoiler:The only facet that makes it back to reality is Bruce Willis' character and the good luck charm. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Though this might just be a coincidence.]]]][[note]]It does not happen in the book, where instead of North's life being threatened, it's his parents, who he has to save from a lynch mob[[/note]]
21	* AmbulanceChaser: Arthur Belt (played by Creator/JonLovitz), who is literally seen chasing an ambulance until he comes across North. Apparently, he just uses it to beat the traffic.
22	* ArtisticLicense: The various cultures depicted. [[spoiler:When an 11 year old dreams the whole thing inaccuracies are to be expected.]]
23	%%* {{Beachcombing}}: Seen in Hawaii.
24	* BigEater: The Tex family.
25	-->'''Pa Tex:''' Well I reckon we'll wake up early and eat, then we'll dig for oil and eat, then we'll rope some doggies, bust a few broncs and maybe get a bite to eat.
26	* BlackComedy: Certainly dips into it a lot at the very least.
27	* BrokenAesop: The film's message is ostensibly about the value of family and accepting one's parents. There was also "home is where the heart is." It does nothing to convince the audience that North had any real world logic in going back to them.
28	** [[spoiler:How does what happens in a child's dream count as a compelling message? Those stereotypes presumably aren't prevalent in universe, so it fails show that there are far worse parents out there, which should be a relatively easy task.]]
29	%%** This is especially true if you take some AlternateCharacterInterpretation on [[spoiler:how the ethnicities are portrayed in North's dream and]] how North is the only character to mention how other parents feel about him [[spoiler:that's not just a product of North's mind. One could easily break the movie's message just by portraying that, if North really does think all of those stereotypes are how people of other ethnicities are and he honestly does think that everyone but his parents look up to him, North is just an egotistical bigot who probably has self-entitlement issues regarding his parents' time with him]].
30	* CrapsackWorld: Everyone in the movie aside from North, his mentor figure, and the whitebread family he's with are boorish, insensitive, loud, selfish, ethnocentric, and incapable of showing sincerity. And arguably, none of them are really that much better.
31	* CringeComedy: The film at least ''attempts'' this:
32	** Mr. Ho makes a crack about his wife being barren ''while she's standing right next to him''. Lampshaded by the dirty look she gives him afterward.
33	** We get a joke from North's first foster parents joke about their own obese son's death, saying it was a "mighty ''big'' loss." We then immediately get a happy-go-lucky, over the top musical number with the lyrics "We had a son who was trampled by a ton of longhorns!"
34	** The scene where the Eskimos exile their elders into icebergs. What truly makes it tasteless beyond belief is how this is pretty much treated as heartlessly as possible, with a guy hurrying people along. Apparently, saying goodbye to your grandparents you'll never see again is time-wasting... home.
35	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: When the Alaskan parents describe themselves to North:
36	-->'''Alaskan Dad:''' We have pride, North, and we're proud of our pride!
37	* DescriptionCut: When it became official that North will divorce his parents, a pair of parents discuss it with their son:
38	-->'''Dad:''' Come on, Andy, his folks are gonna fight it!\
39	'''Mom:''' Of course they are. They're not going to take this lying down.\
40	''[cut to next shot where North's parents reading the article [[VisualPun and faint]] ]''
41	* {{Eagleland}}: Played straight and inverted. Foreigners and Americans who don't exactly fit Type 1 are shoehorned into Type 2.
42	* EnfantTerrible: Winchell, who exploits North's achievement to trigger a child uprising and has no problem having North killed to maintain power.
43	* FalseFriend: Winchell, at first, appears to be North's buddy from school but he later turns into some evil kid overlord who wants North dead.
44	* FantasyKeepsake: North finds the silver dollar in his pocket, complete with bullet hole, that he got in his Texas Family Fantasy [[OrWasItADream after waking up.]]
45	* FanDisservice: When North visits the Ho family in Hawaii, their bid to increase tourism to the island involves plastering every highway with a billboard of his likeness and an octopus pulling down his swimsuit, reminiscent of the early "Coppertone Girl" ads from the '50s and '60s. North freaks out when he finds out about this.
46	%%
47	%% "Fridge" stuff goes on the Fridge page. Just click the lightbulb at the top of the page.
48	%%
49	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Could be with the Pants Factory scene. Obviously what was going on would not be happening in a real pants factory. [[spoiler:Because it didn't, it was all a dream]]. The Texan parents' song also could fit.
50	* FrenchJerk: {{Averted\|Trope}} with North's French parents, who are portrayed as loud and obnoxious, but not actually mean.
51	* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: InUniverse -- there's nothing on TV in France but Creator/JerryLewis movies.
52	* HollywoodAtlas: Most of the segments are horrific pastiches of cultural stereotypes[[note]]which makes sense if you consider [[spoiler:it's AllJustADream an 11 year old boy is having]][[/note]], including:
53	** DarkestAfrica: A primal African tribe complete with grass huts.
54	** EskimoLand: The "old people who are no longer of use voluntarily drift out to sea" has been turned into an industrial line.
55	** EverythingIsBigInTexas: To the point that the prospective parents here intend to fatten North up because they pride themselves on having the biggest of everything. And apparently dress like Elvis in his latter days playing Joe Buck in a production of ''Film/MidnightCowboy'' on Ice.
56	** GayParee: Berets, wine, cigarettes, and Creator/JerryLewis on all the channels, all the time.
57	** ImperialChina: North's Chinese family hails him as [[Film/TheLastEmperor a boy emperor]]. (By the way, China's imperial period ended about 83 years before this film's 1994 release.)
58	* HoodHornament: North's first stop when looking for a new set of parents is Texas, where his prospective parents pick him up in the airport driving an airport cart with horns, followed by a AbsurdlyLongLimousine with horns on the front.
59	* HopeSpot: [[spoiler:North is an inch away from hugging his parents, several seconds away from the time he was allowed to wander the Earth to find a better replacement running out, everything will be okay if he hugs them because it will nullify the "divorce"... and it is right then and there that the hitman that Winchell sent (who was just there waiting for him after chasing him all over) shoots him. Cut to North having a CatapultNightmare wake-up.]]
60	* IncrediblyLamePun: Ma and Pa Tex casually referring to their previous son, who was grossly overweight and eventually died in a stampede; Pa remarks that it was a "mighty big loss".
61	* InformedAbility: It is stated that North is a prodigy as well as pretty much the perfect child to where other parents use him as a reference (i.e., North keeps his room clean). However, all of these are stated by [[UnreliableNarrator North himself]]. Also since he seems to fully believe in all of these racial stereotypes, he is obviously not as smart as stated.
62	* InnocentBigot: North seems to be one of these [[spoiler:since his dream is full of broad cultural stereotypes that he appears to take quite seriously]]. It's not clear if he was meant to come across that way, however.
63	* InsistentTerminology: North's "crack".
64	* KarmaHoudini: Winchell would've been one [[spoiler:[[AllJustADream if the whole thing had actually happened]].]]
65	* LargeHam: The Judge.
66	* {{Metaphorgotten}}: "A bird in the hand is always greener than the grass in the other guy's bushes."
67	* ModernMinstrelsy: The film's depictions of Inuits, Pacific Islanders, Africans, the Chinese, and the French are disturbingly stereotyped.
68	* MoodWhiplash: The assassination plot in the final third is awfully dark for a light fantasy.
69	* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Winchell, whose proclamations of children freeing themselves from their parents' control as North has done are eerily Third Reich-esque.
70	* NewJobAsThePlotDemands: North constantly keeps running into a suspiciously similar character played by Bruce Willis who has a different occupation every time he runs into him.
71	* OneBookAuthor: This film marked the lone film role of Brynn Hartman, wife and eventual murderer of Creator/PhilHartman. (She also made a few minor TV appearances here and there such as on ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun''. Her inability to land bigger roles - not to mention her marriage to a comedian who was becoming more popular by the minute - arguably hastened her depression, leading to their deaths.)
72	* {{Pride}}: North's Alaskan parents have pride, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment and they're proud of their pride]]. They're willing to shove their own parent off on a floating ice patch simply because they're proud of their tradition.
73	* ProductPlacement: A particularly egregious plug for Federal Express.
74	** And if you're watching carefully, Pa and Ma Tex are served Crush soda in their supersized limousine.
75	* PropheticNames: The evil journalist kid is named [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Winchell Winchell]].
76	* {{Pun}}: "Your Honor, the defense rests."[[note]]referring to North's comatose parents in court[[/note]]
77	* RefugeInAudacity: ''Big Time!''
78	* RewatchBonus: The point where [[spoiler:it switches to the dream]] is obvious on a second viewing, but the first time through it just seems like an unusually abrupt scene change.
79	* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: The basic summarization of North's reaction to learning the Amish family was one of his stops.
80	* SmallNameBigEgo:
81	** North, who seems to believe all the parents around him use him as an example of being the perfect son. And [[spoiler:through his dream,]] he seems to believe that he would be emperor of China, people would want to visit Hawaii just because he lives there, and his friend would become rich and powerful just because of the story about him.
82	** There's also the fact that [[spoiler:in the dream]] North's horribly neglectful parents are so shocked by his leaving them that they essentially [[AndIMustScream become statues]] and are put on display for everyone to see [[FridgeLogic for no real reason]], and the leaders of Hawaii would want to promote Hawaiian tourism by [[PaedoHunt showing off his]] [[InsistentTerminology "crack,"]] [[PaedoHunt despite the large amount of problems that it would result in]].
83	* ThatRemindsMeOfASong: The Texan parents sing a parody of the ''{{Series/Bonanza}}'' theme song to North.
84	* UnreliableNarrator: All of the background on how smart and popular North is comes from North himself, and includes things he was not present for and could not possibly know. Creator/BruceWillis has a voice-over narration, but his character only gets info from talking to North as well.
85	* WhenYouComingHomeDad: Subverted in the last act, when North realizes his parents were all right after all, even though they don't heap ridiculous praise on him like other parents.
86	* WiseBeyondTheirYears: Winchell fits this trope to a T, [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior and not in a good way at all]].
87	* WorldOfPun: A literal example.
88	* WorldTour: North travels the world looking for new parents, and the ones he finds are giant stereotypes.
89	----
90	->[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmIwlK-SQUU "Quick, loosen his pants."]]

Context Film / North