The Thing About My Folks

In this long-winded comedy, writer Ben Kleinman (Reiser) is forced to spend quality time with his lonely father (Falk) when the family matriarch (Olympia Dukakis) abruptly walks out on him after 47 years of marriage. While the rest of the clan tries to track down the elderly runaway, father and son take a road trip to upstate New York, as they constantly bicker and ultimately bond. Written by Reiser, the semiautobiographical film has a few genuinely humorous and touching moments, but those infrequent occurrences are buried under a steaming pile of schmaltz.