The thing about 'Folks' is: Incomparable Peter Falk

First thing about The Thing About My Folks, a father-son dramedy blessed with the blunt grace of Peter Falk and the keen gags of Paul Reiser, is that reviewing it is comparable to attending Thanksgiving dinner. At worst it's an obligation. At best it's an unexpected surprise, like hearing a meaningful anecdote from your father-in-law that makes you regard your clan in an entirely new light.

Written by Reiser and directed by Raymond De Felitta (Two Family House), Folks begins with a family crisis and detours into a father-son journey that makes you think My Big Fat Jewish Road Trip. On second thought: Sideways with fly fishing.

In its meandering, affectionate way the film regards the autumnal season when a man ceases being his father's son and becomes his care-giver.

In interviews, Reiser has described his semiautobiographical film as "a work of fiction based on real Jews." But it's impossible to watch this earnest schmaltz and not see it for what it really is: a valentine to Falk. He is sly, he is funny, he is pungent. Falk, 78, skims this schmaltz into chicken soup for the soul. He makes it into the Peter Falk movie that Peter Falk lovers (and who is not one?) have been waiting for since The In-Laws.

Reiser, who created the TV hit Mad About You, may have conceived this two-man show as a buddy comedy of the Mad About Dad ilk, but Falk seizes this sitcom misunderstanding and invests it with the urgency and perspiration of a John Cassavetes drama. As Sam Kleinman, Falk comes to his son, Ben (Reiser), seeking solace. Sam's wife of 47 years, Muriel (Olympia Dukakis), has left abruptly. Sam is lonely and confused. To distract Dad, Ben suggests that he accompany him to see a man about a farmhouse.

On their spin through Upstate New York, which involves the purchase of a copacetic 1940 Ford De Luxe, father and son rehash the past. You were an absentee dad and husband, Ben accuses. You don't know me, Sam retorts.

Blinded by old grievances, a child can find it hard to see a parent as a person. Reiser's screenplay makes the point, but instead of dramatizing it, he travelogues it. For me, the sequences of father-son bonding - fly fishing, camping under the stars, hustling pool - felt perfunctory, like photo ops.

I mean no disrespect to Reiser the actor when I say that Falk so outclasses him that it throws the film out of balance. Falk is formidable; only Alan Arkin, John Cassavetes and, here, the phenomenal Olympia Dukakis really meet his match. So powerful and tender are the scenes between Falk and Dukakis that by movie's end, I was wishing that the film had been more about the marriage of Sam and Muriel and less about the father and son.

In its best sequences Folks is about the season when a son ceases being his father's critic and becomes his champion. While I resisted much of it, by its finale I was grateful for the trip, and even more grateful to Reiser, who enabled Falk and Dukakis to give the performances of their careers. And it got me to thinking, if On Golden Pond earned Henry Fonda his belated Oscar, might Folks do the same for Falk?

Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey

at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.

The Thing About My Folks

** 1/2 (out of four stars)

Produced by Robert F. Newmyer, Paul Reiser and Jeffrey Silver, directed by Raymond De Felitta, written by Reiser, photography by Dan Gillham, music by Steven Argila, distributed by Picturehouse.

Running time: 1 hour, 36 mins.

Sam Kleinman. . . Peter Falk

Ben Kleinman. . . Paul Reiser

Muriel Kleinman. . . Olympia Dukakis

Rachel Kleinman. . . Elizabeth Perkins

Parent's guide: PG-13 (profanity, suggestive language)

Showing at: area theaters