The Brady Bunch Movie

An anodyne family-values sitcom, The Brady Bunch ran from 1969 to 1974, and somehow reflected the Nixon presidency without mentioning drugs, Vietnam or Watergate. Two decades later, how relevant can the Brady Bunch be? The screenwriters' answer, subverting the original, is simply to plonk the family in the middle of contemporary LA. All around is greed, apathy and dog-eat-dog, but the Brady home remains a haven of cheesy smiles and moral certitude. Director Thomas (once Sgt Lucy Bates of Hill Street Blues) has recreated '70s sitcom-land with the kind of unerring attention to detail Merchant-Ivory lavish on a society ball, and she's drawn hilariously synthetic performances from a shrewdly cloned cast.