Yours, Mine & Ours (2005)

The late 1960s saw a boomlet in wholesome comedies about big blended American families just when the influence of free love (with accessible contraception) was turning the big American family into an endangered species. That explains the back-in-the-day success of The Brady Bunch, but don't look for the same conservative counterprogramming success from Yours, Mine & Ours. Rene Russo stars as Helen, a loosey-goosey widow with 10 kids who marries Dennis Quaid as Frank, a rules-and-regulations-minded widower with eight of his own. (He's a Coast Guard admiral; she's a handbag designer.) The movie, directed with a gym teacher's whistle by Scooby-Doo's Raja Gosnell, is a contempo soft-focus remake of the 1968 original starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. Problem is, the modern soft edges only accentuate the datedness of the premise. Helen's gaggle now includes six multiculti adoptees, and Frank's now a sensitive type, even in uniform, who holds parenting sacred. Handsome couple, though, especially when Dad takes his shirt off.

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