Guarding Tess is a 1994 American dramedy film directed by Hugh Wilson, starring Shirley MacLaine and Nicolas Cage.
It's about Doug Chesnic (Cage), a U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to guard widowed former First Lady Tess Carlisle (MacLaine). It starts out with a plot of humorous conflict, then evolves into a more serious drama with a look into Tess’s unhappiness, with a surprise kidnapping in the final act.
Tropes:
- Badass Longcoat: Doug and his fellow agents wear them, although it’s always played for laughs.
- Big Fun: Frederick, the portly humorous psychiatrist at Tess’s estate.
- Buried Alive: Tess after the kidnapping although she’s rescued.
- Coattail-Riding Relative: Tess’s children don’t visit except once when her son wants her celebrity endorsement for a business deal he’s making.
- The Comically Serious: A lot of humor comes from some moments when Doug is The Stoic or trying to maintain professionalism through things like radioing fellow bodyguard Bobby which canned food to buy with Tess as he stays to guard the entrance during a routine shopping trip.
- Ditch the Bodyguards: Tess and Earl the chauffeur repeatedly try to ditch their Secret Service bodyguards on joy rides. It’s not always played for laughs.
- Dramatic Irony: Doug fires Earl the chauffeur but then apologizes says he was out of line and gets Earl to come back. Earl is the mastermind of the kidnapping plot and it would have been better if he had been kicked out.
- Establishing Character Moment: Early on Tess tells Doug that she has an inoperable brain tumor, she’s purchased a missile launcher for him and his men and that their going to the opera in Columbia. Then she asks which one of those three he thinks is true and Doug asks what time the opera is. The way he keeps a straight face through it all implies she does it a lot. Also she really does have a tumor.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Doug shoots a kidnapper in the toe.
- The Lost Lenore: Tess clearly misses her husband a lot.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: FBI Agent Schaefer is the authority figure most willing to listen to Doug after the kidnapping.
- Sarcastic Confession: Tess says that she has an inoperable brain tumor early on but in a way meant to imply she was joking.
- Small Town Boredom: Doug has it badly, although its a small town he’s stationed in rather than growing up in. He wants to be in D.C. guarding people during riots but Tess won’t let him get transferred.
