Re-Inventing Eddie

Eddie Harris (Lynch) is a normal dad, who loves his life, job and family. His philosophy for bringing up children with his wife Jeanie, is honesty at all times. Children should be expected to ask whatever questions they like and get answers, no matter how embarrassing. Unusual parents you might think, given most squirm at the thought of explaining the birds and the bees. Their frankness though backfires when their daughter stumbles on them making love, and proceeds to tell her school all about the experience.

Mother Jeanie is asked to see the Headmistress who concerned at the level of Katie’s knowledge for her age, decides a picture Katie has drawn of Eddie dressed up, is worrying – it soon emerges that Eddie far from being normal, is really quite loopy because when alone with the kids at bathtime, he plays a weird game pretending to be a mad old granny. Of course its innocent, but any mad old grannies out there might feel Eddie’s ageist humour is giving them a decidedly bad press.

Of course this being a drama involving the social services, they assume he’s not mad but merely a pervert. Eddie gets investigated, everyone naturally assumes he’s guilty and before long, a ridiculous bath game has made life very serious for Eddie. Overall the tone is too simplistic, the social services for instance are the baddies here, no mention of the good they occasionally do and the fact that someone has to do that job. Harris is painted as innocent from start to finish and the social services as dense for not spotting it when in all fairness they were of course perfectly right to question what Harris was up to given he was doing impressions of mad old grannies. He should have stuck to his factory job and leave the funnies to the professionals on the Tele. Just about likeable as a film but social workers should be given more of a break next time.

Matt Arnoldi