Orange County (PG-13, 2002)

ORANGE COUNTY centers on Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks), a high school senior whose mother (Catherine O'Hara) is a drunk, father (John Lithgow) is too busy making deals to pay any attention to him, and brother Lance (Jack Black) is drugged out and "constantly recovering from the night before." Shaun also has a sweet, animal-loving girlfriend named Ashley (Schuyler Fisk). Shaun wants to be a writer and his dream is to go to Stanford because his idol, Marcus Skinner (Kevin Kline), teaches there. But when his addled college counselor (Lily Tomlin) sends the wrong transcript, he is rejected. So Shaun, Lance, and Ashley drive up to Stanford to meet with the director of admissions (Harold Ramis) to try to persuade him to let Shaun in. Unfortunately, they accidentally feed him some of Lance's drugs and burn down the Admissions office. Eventually, Shaun spends a few moments with his idol, and, like Dorothy, learns that there's no place like home.

This is the kind of movie that begins with a comic death in a surfing accident, followed by a funeral at which female mourners wear black bikinis. Drugs and drunkenness are supposed to be so inherently funny that no actual jokes have to accompany them. Then there are the wildly un-funny moments involving forgetting to give a sick man his medicine and then having a lot of things hit him on the head. Shaun shows no evidence of being sensitive or a writer. Even in a comedy, there have to be believable characters you root for, and that never happens here.

Hanks and Fisk, as the ostensible force of sanity at the heart of the movie, don't get much of a chance to prove themselves as actors, but they seem to have some presence. Black, as always, even with terrible material, is a joy to watch. The talented actors in small roles -- including O'Hara, Lithgow, Tomlin, and Ramis, as well as Chevy Chase, Ben Stiller, and especially Kevin Kline -- are like the oases in the movie's desert. Kline, who seems to be on loan from another movie, has a very nice scene with Hanks, and shows us how a real actor can create a complete character with just a few words in a script and a few moments onscreen.

Studio: Paramount Pictures
Director: Jake Kasdan
Cast: Catherine O'Hara, Colin Hanks, Jack Black
Genre: Comedy
Run time: 81 minutes
Theatrical release: January 11, 2002
DVD release: June 18, 2002
MPAA Rating: PG-13
MPAA explanation: drug content, sexual situations, and language