 |
|
R.V.
|
|
|
|||
 R.V. Production NotesTagline: On a family vacation, no one can hear you scream.
Bob Munro (Robin Williams), persuades his wife and children to give up their Hawaiian vacation for some “family bonding” on a cross-country RV trip. But it’s all a ruse. Bob has other, more career-oriented reasons on his mind than spending quality time with his family in the Rocky Mountains. Through a series of misadventures, including constant run-ins with an overly friendly troupe of full-time RV’ers, Bob inadvertently learns the true meaning of family.
The American Dream on Wheels
The story follows a man and his family when they rent an RV and head for the Rockies, ending up in a campground community. About an average, dysfunctional American family who is about to set off on the most dangerous, high-stakes, life-threatening and traumatizing adventure of their lives: two weeks together in an RV.
“For a day, for a lifetime” is the tantalizing advertising logo that inspires a man to take his family on the adventure of their lives by assuming the helm of a deluxe recreational vehicle and winding through the back roads of the good old U.S.A. A vehicle with more personal amenities than a 747 jetliner, this RV is the American dream come true.
At least that’s the case a desperate Bob Munro (Robin Williams) makes to his family when he announces a change of plans for their long overdue vacation. The real reason is that his boss at Pure Vibe soda has made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that either he closes a merger acquisition over the coming week (his vacation week) or not bother returning from vacation at all.
To his family’s horror, their dreams of lounging on the beaches of Hawaii are dashed as they are forced to board a giant, unmanageable RV for a trip to the Rocky Mountains, and not since Stripes has a recreational vehicle featured so prominently in a major motion picture comedy.
The genesis of the project was a real-life RV family vacation taken by the film’s producers, Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick, several years back. The husband and wife team had three very young children at the time and they were looking for a family-togetherness outing. “Doug is a very good vacation planner,” says Fisher, “and we decided to take an RV trip. We didn’t really know much about it, but Doug loves to drive things and I like puttering around in the back, so it seemed like a fun idea. We spent a long time researching it — where we were going to get the RV, where we were going to go, etc.”
In the end, they were joined by a group of friends and their respective families, forming a caravan of recreational vehicles, cruising along the highways and byways and communicating via walkie-talkies. What started out as a “trucker fantasy,” according to Wick, became a wellspring for a comedy about families.
“RV life is pretty funny because suddenly your whole family is cramped into more or less one room for however long the trip is,” Wick laughs, “and you get to know each other in a whole different way.”
For the film’s director, Barry Sonnenfeld, even the look of an RV makes him laugh. “RVs are funny for many reasons,” says Sonnenfeld. “First of all they look funny. They’re too tall. They’re too long, they’re sort of ungainly and, inside, they are sort of weirdly full of off-versions of otherwise perfectly good colors.”
And, as producer Wick learned, “anything that can go wrong with an RV often does.” Each member of his caravan suffered a setback with either the electricity, the plumbing or under the hood. “There’s a big learning curve when you join the RV world.”
The real story of RV, however, is the typical American family the vehicle is transporting. “What was interesting about this project is that it gave me the opportunity to explore the nature of families,” Sonnenfeld continues, “and how, as you get older and your kids get older, they make their own friends and begin to grow away from you.”
Sonnenfeld could also not resist the idea of mining the comic potential in what could easily be a horror story. “My theory has always been the worse the experience, the better it is when you describe it in retrospect. I passed four kidney stones. Each one was horrible, but those stories are some of my best and funniest stories. Getting a flat tire on the Long Island Expressway on Thanksgiving – that’s a good story, but again, in retrospect. RV is about a family that has sort of drifted apart — even though they all still live together. They’ve all got their own MP3 players, their own computers. So even when they’re in the same room, they’re apart mentally. Forcing them to be together in this recreational vehicle at first threatens to make them grow even farther apart, but their near-disastrous experiences bring them back together in a hilarious fashion. It’s through adventure and adversity that they are forced to do things together as a family again and to reconnect.”
Also, Sonnenfeld adds, the Munros’ shared experiences are what comes to define them as a family. “When you’re all driving together and you get a flat tire, and you’re all standing on the side of the road in the rain laughing because there’s no jack and dad is using his Tool Man screwdriver to try and change the tire – that’s something you remember for the rest of your life.”
For the producers, RV is also a movie about community. “As soon as we arrived in the first RV camp, we saw there was a community of people that were having a really good time,” Fisher recalls. “They had blenders and were making margaritas and having parties. We really sensed that the communal life at the RV camp was one of the major draws.”
The experience proved so indelible for Fisher and Wick that they immediately began contemplating a movie that would explore the RV lifestyle. “The idea,” says Wick, “was to take a family with all kinds of issues and problems and let them be worked out within the intimate confines of an RV trip.”
For director Sonnenfeld, the film was a way of creating a story that also reflected his own experiences as a father and husband. He saw RV as a way to incorporate some of his own amusing (again, in retrospect) experiences into a motion picture comedy.
The Munros and the Gornickes
After screenwriter Geoff Rodkey (Daddy Day Care) delivered his script about a man who has trouble juggling his personal and professional life, the producers sought out the ideal actor to play the central role of Bob Munro — the ideal being Robin Williams. “He’s the first person we thought of,” says Fisher, “because we wanted someone you believe would take his family on an RV trip and would, at the same time, be completely ill-equipped to do all the mechanical handyman work required. And we were so happy when Robin said yes, because he has heart and he’s one of the world’s most brilliant comic actors.”
To shepherd Williams through the comic zigs and zags of RV, Fisher and Wick also aimed high, setting their sights on the man who directed such major comedy hits as The Addams Family and Men in Black™ films as well as Get Shorty. “We really wanted a director who was funny and who could bring an original touch to the movie,” says Fisher. I had worked with Barry on Men in Black. He’s incredibly talented and really funny.”
“Barry is one of the funniest people you will ever be in a room with,” adds Wick, “and he also has exquisite visual taste, having originally been a cinematographer for the Coen brothers, among others. So I knew he would bring a theatricality that you don’t often get in these kinds of family movies.”
While Wick saw Williams’ character as his own alter ego, Sonnenfeld also strongly identified with Bob Munro. “Robin is essentially playing me,” Sonnenfeld confesses. “I’m not sure he was even aware of it, but every time Bob was scared or ran out of the RV screaming because of a raccoon, or wanted to be the first guy in the meal line, he was playing me — a sort of self-centered Jewish guy, even though the character in the movie is in no way Jewish. “
|
|||||
Cheryl Hines, Josh Hutcherson, Joanna "JoJo" Levesque and Robin Williams in R.V.
Sitemaps, RSS Feeds & Social Networks
|
|||||||
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Movies Central
Movies Central website is created and designed by Atlantis, 2000 - 2010
All film stills, posters, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners and may not be reproduced for any reason whatsoever. If proper notation of owned material is not given please notify us so we can make adjustments. Copyright © 2009 HTML Sitemap
