The Home Teachers

Grade:

"Home teaching is missionary work to the member. Missionary work is home teaching to the nonmember." -- Harold B. Lee

Plot Summary:

Comedy about two mismatched home teaching companions who try to get all their home teaching done the last day of the month...with disastrous results.

Opinion:

"The Home Teachers" is the third movie from HaleStorm Entertainment, following "The Singles Ward" and "The RM". After making great strides in quality movie making between their first and second feature films, I went in having somewhat high hopes for "The Home Teachers"...but, alas, in the end I was disappointed. "Home Teachers" is by far the worst of the three and shows HaleStorm taking a huge step back in almost every area. The screenplay is the biggest problem, but it's not helped by the subpar acting of the two leads--curious, because they are both veterans of other productions.

As mentioned in my reviews for the first two HaleStorm movies, the first and only criteria for a successful comedy is: Is it funny? Unfortunately, for "Home Teachers" the answer is 'no'. Not 'sometimes', not 'sporadically', not even 'every once in a while'. The "Home Teachers" just plain isn't funny. The main problem is that each major segment of the movie pretty much has one and only one joke...and it takes a LOOOOONG time to setup each one--by which time the audience has already guessed what direction the movie is going and any humorous effect has been reduced. And there's nothing drearier than watching a movie that's supposed to be funny, and tries to be funny, yet...isn't.

The wait between 'jokes' could have been less tedious if it had been filled with clever dialogue and witty banter between the two leads...but this turns out to be "The Home Teachers" biggest failing. Greg and Nelson are set up in standard 'Odd Couple' fashion--an extremely common technique in comedies where two people with completely opposite personalities are forced to be together with both of them getting rubbed the wrong way by the other. When done properly, it can be quite humorous as both people use their unique perspective on things to drive the other person up the wall...but here it's mostly tiresome as the two of them don't really have anything clever or witty to say--they mostly argue about trivial things and it's...well, not funny.

In keeping with the tradition of the first two movies, "The Home Teachers" stays with the humorous tone (well...in theory) for the first two thirds and then settles down in the end for a spiritual message (which STILL keeps it ahead of "The Other Side of Heaven"...) The message (obviously) is about home teaching and is handled fairly well (I went and contacted the people I home teach the day after watching it), although it also is let down by the faulty screenplay:

*SPOILERS* Greg and Nelson visit their third home teaching family. It is clearly light out when they arrive, and when they finally leave an indeterminate time later, it's now dark out--so they've clearly been there a while. Greg feels they have some unfinished business so they go back and talk to her again. She shares with them her real problem and Nelson asks why she didn't tell them about it before. "Well...you two seemed like you were in such a hurry!" she says. Really...why? They spent so much time in her house the first time that darkness fell--and even proper home teaching visits are supposed to be done within an hour. It doesn't seem like they were in quite a 'hurry', does it...?

"The Home Teachers" I think was flawed from the beginning. Kurt Hale wanted to do a movie about home teaching but didn't really have enough ideas to fill a whole feature film. (Even with the long joke setups and constant pointless conversations, the movie clocks in at a fairly short 82 minutes.) The screenplay needed at least a couple more rewrites and the two main characters fleshed out a little more so that their Odd Couple relationship had a little more cleverness and creativity to it. As it is, "The Home Teachers" is a misstep from HaleStorm that's fairly tedious and barely even worth a rental. Might as well just watch "The RM" again, instead...

Content Analysis: PG for 'thematic elements'

In keeping with the 'family movie' tradition--"The Home Teachers" eschews 'dirty' humor but embraces 'gross' humor--including jokes about an overflowing toilet (with toilet water landing on a dinner table filled with food) and 'improper handling' of a dead body. The toilet sequence, at least, used clean water instead of...the opposite, so at least the filmmakers showed some restraint in the 'gross' category (in other words, it's not as bad as it could have been--faint praise, isn't it?)

One scene I found a little bothersome that deserves comment: Our heroes (carrying a deer head) get fired upon by two deer hunters who use a shotgun, hunting rifle, and finally an automatic assault rifle who try to gun them down. It will probably pass without comment throughout most of right-wing Utah, but I thought the gunplay was a little excessive for a 'family' movie. No one gets hit, of course, but does anyone but me think with all the gun violence in the world today, a scene with people getting shot at by someone with an automatic weapon really just isn't very funny?

In-depth Analysis:

I already discussed the principles of home teaching in "The RM" analysis, so I won't repeat myself here. (this, in fact, is one reason why "The Home Teachers" is far less significant of a movie than the first two HaleStorm productions--"The RM" already included a very funny section on home teaching which also, by way of counter-example, taught an important lesson about being an effective home teacher. In a way, "The Home Teachers" was redundant before it even started filming.)

Let's discuss, though, a conversation near the end between Nelson and Greg where Nelson admits he missed his child being born because he was on splits with the missionaries. Greg tells him he doesn't have to be going 'full throttle' in the gospel all the time. This is a good conversation (and could have been expanded upon) because Greg, of course, never seems to go 'full throttle' in the gospel at any time--in fact seems to have the parking brake on most of the time. Is Greg right, though? Is it possible to be too aggressive and single-minded in doing the Lord's work?

A lot of people say they don't want to be 'too faithful' in the gospel, or 'too righteous'--but this is usually just an excuse for not being as good as you should be. Strictly speaking, it's impossible to be 'too' righteous or faithful--however, it's an unfortunate fact, particularly in Utah, that people who are very diligent in the gospel and keep high standards (the "Peter Priesthoods" and "Molly Mormons" as they are called) are frequently looked down upon by the member population at large. Sometimes, the criticism arises from the pride and self-righteousness that often accompanies very principled people, but usually it's an expression of disdain for people who are doing the things they should be doing and making others feel guilty. (Not wanting to be 'too righteous' essentially means you stay away from the big sins, but have a host of small sins that you'd like to keep hold of...)

There's a difference, though, between being 'too righteous' and being too focused on the small things of the gospel that you neglect the big things. A talk I heard sometime ago (which I've been unable to locate again for reference...does this ring a bell with anyone?) said our priorities in life should be:

(1) God

(2) Family

(3) Church

...with the key being understanding the difference between (1) and (3).

It would be improper to, say, smoke a cigar with your family if they asked you to, because that involves breaking a covenant you've made with God. Not attending a Church activity, though, when there's a conflict with a family event is something different--and much more excusable. The purpose of the Church is to strengthen the family, not the other way around. Nelson backing out of missionary splits to be with his wife in the hospital not only would be excused, but would actually be proper. The recent LDS Worldwide Priesthood Training Session (June 2004) emphasized this point: that bishops in particular can't neglect their family responsibilities in pursuit of fulfilling their Church responsibilities. To paraphrase David O. McKay's famous statement: "No amount of success in a Church calling can compensate for failure in the home."

Of course, putting off your home teaching until the last day of the month and then having a family activity intervene (see "The RM") isn't any good either. The key is finding that balance between helping your family and helping the Church. Most Church callings--including home teaching--do not take an extreme amount of time, and church members can handle both...if you manage your time properly.

 

Random Notes and Comments:

(1) Cameos in this movie include popular LDS songwriter Ruth Hale as an organist and former baseball player Wally Joyner as one of the home teachees.

(2) Greg has a line of dialogue after the two crash their car where he references the crash as when his companion 'went Thelma and Louise with the car'. The reference, of course, is to the movie "Thelma and Louise" which ends with the title couple also driving their car off a cliff. It's interesting, though, that "Thelma and Louise" is rated R--and since its R rating is for reasons other than someone getting brutally scourged and crucified, most Church members probably wouldn't (or shouldn't) have seen it. Kurt Hale, the screen-writer, appears to be betting, though, that people who see this movie are still going to understand the reference--and he's probably right (I never actually saw the movie myself, but I still know how it ends...) He missed an obvious opportunity here for a deeper, more clever joke, though: Nelson, being such a straight arrow Mormon, certainly wouldn't have seen the movie "Thelma and Louise" (being R and all...) so it might have been funny to show he didn't understand the reference--something like:

Greg: '...you Thelma and Louise'd our car!"

Nelson: "Velma...what?"

Instead, though, Nelson has no response at all and the line goes from a potentially good joke to a mildly clever throw-away line--one of the many missed opportunities in the film.

(3) Viewers who have seen "The Singles Ward" will recognize the picture in the business card for a tow truck company the cop gives Greg and Nelson near the end. It's the same picture shown during the "Singles Ward" end credits showing one of the main female character's female friends and her new husband (she's the one who talked constantly about how rich and handsome her future husband is going to be...and then married a tow truck driver with a big beard.)

(4) While writing some of the material for the 2004 Pearl Awards (for LDS music), writers Eric D. Snider and Daryn Tufts wanted to include a joke about "The Home Teachers" being a box-office failure. The joke involved "Chunga" and "Mister" from 107.5 The End and was originally written like this:

MISTER: So Chunga, it's interesting, you've played a cop in both Halestorm movies so far.

CHUNGA: That true, I've been in all of them.

MISTER: Yeah, you were a cop in "The Singles Ward," AND in "The R.M."

CHUNGA: And "The Home Teachers."

MISTER: And the what now?

CHUNGA: "The Home Teachers."

MISTER: Never heard of it.

Halestorm didn't approve of the joke, though, citing "concern" for any of their "investors in the audience" and the text was changed...

Click Here for Reader Comments