Funny Farm

(Dir. George Roy Hill) (1988)

This low level, cheesy comedy is actually pretty funny, with nice performances by Chevy Chase and Madolyn Smith as New Yorkers undertaking a sea change.

The main reason we love it is the idea of moving from a nice NY apartment to ‘Redbud’ to write an “action-comedy-adventure” called The Big Heist.  Andy Farmer (Chevy Chase) sits in his ‘writing room’ and types “The” (after doing the title and chapter pages – it’s a bit like Monty Python’s ‘Novel Writing’) and there’s a priceless anniversary scene where Chevy presents the first few chapters of The Big Heist.

Poor Mrs Farmer!  She didn’t plan on reading a draft this night!  And especially her husband’s effusions…after he explains the jokes, makes a fire and gets champagne, she is forced to tell him, (in tears, after gulping down her champagne): “Well it’s all those flashbacks, you never know when anything’s taking place…there’s, in the first twenty pages alone I counted three flashbacks, one flash forward and I think on page eight you have a flash sideways!”