5. 關于大家庭的電影

Very large families are a popular feature in films. Often chaotic, they are a vehicle for showing stressed, less-than-perfect parents. In Home Alone, Macaulay Culkin's character Kevin was famously forgotten by his family - left behind when they went on their Christmas holiday.

Cheaper By The Dozen sees parents battle with constant untidiness caused by their many children. "Lots of movies show the extreme, it's either the perfect family or the completely dysfunctional ones," says Helen O'Hara, deputy online editor of Empire magazine.

"In Cheaper By The Dozen they actually have a pretty perfect life, they have to deal with some messiness but their family is solid, the marriage is solid and they live in a gorgeous house.

"The film Parenthood in the '90s showed something a bit more. There were more varieties of parenting on display in that film, and they are dealing with interesting issues."

Parenthood followed the varying dilemmas faced by an extended family. There is the single mother dealing with her difficult teenage children, a father desperately trying to push his daughter into being a child genius, and the exuberant dad, played by Steve Martin, who lives chaotically with his growing family, making balloon animals and always taking things too far.

O'Hara adds: "There's a moment where Steve Martin's character is dealing with his son who is in a fast food restaurant and he took his retainer brace out to eat his burger and ended up losing it. He ends up having to search through the bins.

"It's ridiculous really, but there's a certain sangfroid in knowing the you aren't going to be any of those parents in the film - you're not going to make those mistakes."

在電影中大家庭是很受歡迎的元素，他們經常吵鬧，是展現不夠完美父母的載體。在電影《小鬼當家》（Home Alone）中，麥考利?庫爾金（Macaulay Culkin）所飾演的凱文經常被父母遺忘，當他們外出過圣誕節時把凱文自己留在了家里。

《兒女一籮筐》（Cheaper By The Dozen）的主要劇情是父母一直在與眾多孩子造成的不整潔作斗爭。《帝國雜志》網站副主編海倫?奧哈拉（Helen O'Hara）稱：“很多電影都在講述一些極端情況，要么是完美的家庭，要么是完全不正常的家庭。”

“在《兒女一籮筐》中，事實上一家人有完美的生活，他們必須要處理一些混亂，但他們的家庭和婚姻是很穩固的，而且他們住在一個富麗堂皇的大房子里。”

“20世紀90年代的電影《為人父母》（Parenthood）向我們展示更多道理，在這部電影中，展出更多不同的育兒方法，而且處理的也是一些有趣問題。”

《為人父母》講述了很多大家庭需面臨的不同困境。其中，單親母親需要照顧正處于青春期的孩子；父親逼迫女兒成為天才兒童；史蒂夫?馬丁（Steve Martin）飾演一位過于溺愛孩子的父親，會用氣球做動物、而且經常把事情考慮的很遠。

奧哈拉還稱：“電影中有個情節講述的是史蒂夫?馬丁飾演的角色與其兒子在快餐店里發生的事，兒子把牙套拿下來吃漢堡，卻把它弄丟了，最后他們不得不翻箱倒柜地尋找。”

“這真的很可笑，但只有當人們確保自己不會成為電影中那般父母時，才會如此冷靜，希望大家不會犯同樣的錯誤。”

（來源：中國日報網愛新聞iNews 編輯：丹妮）