Drunk Parents is a 2019 comedy about two drunk parents attempting to hide their ever increasing financial difficulties from their daughter and social circle through elaborate neighborhood schemes.
Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek have always had a flair for comedy and it feels right to see them headlining a film on their own, especially one about a pair of messed up parents who recklessly spin out of control. What could go wrong? Well, it turns out, a lot. Directed by Fred Wolf, Drunk Parents is not what it should be, a lifeless sort of empty tale that has nothing but a couple of wildly over-the-top performances to show for it.
After dropping off their daughter Rachel (Michelle Veintimilla) at college, parents Nancy (Hayek) and Frank (Baldwin) are on their own, facing the truth about the financial ruin they’ve been hiding from everyone. Affluent and living beyond their means, they need money, fast. With copious amounts of alcohol in their bodies, they aimlessly try a yard sale but fail epically, finding that in their drunken state, they’ve rented out their vacationing neighbor’s (Aasif Mandvi) home. What they didn’t know is that the renter, a guy named Carl (Jim Gaffigan), is a registered sex offender. Sounds bad, right? It only gets worse. Much worse.
It’s not that Baldwin and Hayek don’t have the energy, because they most certainly do, and in maybe any other movie, might have been onto something truly funny, even a series of movies. However, in Wolf’s hands, things fall apart fast in a script that doesn’t offer them any real challenge, the ‘comedy’ not just light, but so purposefully distasteful, it’s almost painful to watch. I mean, you want to make the most of it, mostly because of the cast. But try to imagine the gifted talents of Salma Hayek reduced to frantically rolling on the floor stripping off layers of spandex while baby spiders emerge from eggs buried in the wig she’s wearing so neighbors don’t think she’s the child predator kidnappers posted of her gagged and bound in the woods. That’s a thing that happens here.
Drunk Parents is full of at bats with big swings, nearly every one of them a whiff, Wolf, who co-wrote the screenplay, throwing everything he can at the screen in hopes it will connect, I think mostly hoping the considerable charms of his leads will do the heavy lifting. I won’t deny that Baldwin and Hayek dive deep into the abyss with Hayek especially looking like she owes someone a debt. However, there’s just nothing all that imaginative in this clunky soup, and while some might get a kick out of the comedic timing of the stars, this is running on empty from the frame one.