Grandma's Boy is a 2006 American comedy stoner film produced by Adam Sandler's production company Happy Madison. The film stars Allen Covert, who also co-wrote and co-produced the film. The film tells the story of a video game tester named Alex (played by Covert) who is forced to move in with his grandmother after being evicted from his home.
Co-stars include Nick Swardson, Linda Cardellini, Shirley Jones, Shirley Knight, Joel David Moore, Kevin Nealon, Jonah Hill, and Doris Roberts as Grandma Lilly. Rob Schneider, David Spade, and professional wrestler Kevin Nash have cameo appearances. Grandma's Boy received negative reviews from critics and was a box office bomb. However, it grossed more than $30 million in DVD sales and developed a cult following.
Plot
Alex is a single, 36-year-old video game tester who lives with his friend Josh. When Josh wastes their rent money on Filipino hookers, his landlord kicks them both out, and Alex has to find a new place to live. Alex tries to stay with his marijuana dealer, Dante, but cannot do so because Dante is adopting a wild lion to live in the house. Alex spends one night with his co-worker Jeff, but Jeff still lives with his parents. After an embarrassing "encounter" with Jeff's mom, in which he is caught masturbating in the bathroom and subsequently ejaculates on her, Alex is forced to move in with his grandmother and her two eccentric friends, Bea and Grace.
Alex is given many chores and fix-up projects to do around the house, but has a hard time completing them because his grandma and her friends are a constant distraction. He also finds it hard to get any work done. Alex discovers that the three women have a fascination with the television program Antiques Roadshow and later is able to get some peace and quiet by giving them tickets to attend a taping of the show. At work, Alex meets the attractive Samantha, who has been sent by the company's corporate office to oversee the production of a new video game. Alex and Samantha hit it off, but the only person in the way of their relationship is the creator of the game they are all working on, J.P., a self-proclaimed "genius" who is obsessed with video games and has a crush on Samantha. Samantha is not interested in J.P. and declines his constant advances.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to sound cool to his younger co-workers, Alex says that he is living "with three hot babes". Alex's friends believe the lie and actually think the reason he is so tired every day at work is because he is living with three women who constantly "wear him out" in the bedroom. The real cause of his fatigue is because he stays up late at night working on his own video game, called Demonik, which he has been developing in secret for some time. Alex's grandma asks about the game one night and he teaches her to play it. To his surprise, she becomes quite good at it and beats many levels. After Alex and his co-workers finish successfully testing Eternal Death Slayer 3, their boss Mr. Cheezle tells Samantha to take the boys out to eat at a vegan restaurant, but they instead make fun of the restaurant and their waiter when they arrive, and then leave to a burger shop. When Jeff has to use the bathroom and refuses to use the one in the restaurant, Alex is forced to take everyone to his house.
Alex comes home to find that his grandma, Grace, and Bea drank all of his pot, which they thought was tea. When Samantha admits to smoking weed too, Alex calls up Dante and throws a wild party. During the party the group prank-calls J.P.and leaves him a voicemail that makes fun of him about wanting to be a robot. J.P. is upset by the message and shows up at Alex's grandma's house a couple nights later in tears. Feeling bad for him, Alex agrees to let him borrow his only copy of Demonik and test it out for a few days. To get back at Alex for making his life miserable, and becoming accustomed to stealing others' ideas, J.P. steals the game and tries to pass it off as his own at work. Mr. Cheezle does not believe Alex when he insists the game is his, since it was his only copy, so his friends call his grandmother to the office. Because she has mastered the game already, she plays J.P. and wins to prove it belongs to Alex. In the end, Alex is vindicated and creates a successful game.
Cast
- Allen Covert as Alex
- Linda Cardellini as Samantha
- Peter Dante as Dante
- Doris Roberts as Grandma Lilly
- Joel Moore as J.P.
- Shirley Jones as Grace
- Shirley Knight as Bea
- Kevin Nealon as Mr. Cheezle
- Nick Swardson as Jeff
- Jonah Hill as Barry
- Aaron Yoo as Kane
- Thomas Haden Church as Dan
- Scott Halberstadt as Bobby
- Rob Schneider as Yuri
- David Spade as Shiloh
- Kevin Nash as Mover
- Randal Reeder as Biker
- Abdoulaye N'Gom as Dr. Shakalu
Production
Filming took place in Los Angeles at L.A. Center Studios, and locations in the vicinity. The film opened in wide release to 2,000+ theaters, with an "R" rating, on January 6, 2006. The Region 1 DVD was released May 9, 2006 in widescreen format, with theatrical and unrated versions, subtitled in English and Spanish, with audio tracks in English, Spanish, and French. It includes commentary tracks by the director and stars, deleted scenes, montages of outtakes and alternative lines, and several "featurettes."
Game developer Terminal Reality was involved in the production of the film, lending footage to promote their game Demonik. The game was cancelled before the film's release, but the footage remained in the final cut.
Reception
Critical opinion of the film upon its release was negative. At Rotten Tomatoes, Grandma's Boy received an 18% critic rating based on 62 reviews. Metacritic has aggregated a 33% critic rating based on 15 reviews. Despite a weak critical reception, the film has developed a cult following. Grandma's Boy won several honors in High Times' 2006 Stony Awards, including "Best Stoner Movie," "Best Actor in a Movie" (Allen Covert), and "Best Pot Scene in a Movie." The film, which was estimated to have cost $5 million to make, was able to make box office returns of $6.6 million. However, it did well on DVD, making slightly more than $30 million.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack includes tracks of dialogue from the movie between the musical tracks.
- Other music
Music from the film not found on the soundtrack includes:
References
External links
- Grandma's Boy
- Grandma's Boy at AllMovie
- Grandma's Boy at the Internet Movie Database
- Grandma's Boy at Rotten Tomatoes
- Grandma's Boy at Metacritic