Mr. Mom

An engineer laid off stays at home while his wife takes a job at an advertising agency. He assumes the house and three children will be easy. The film gets its humour from his incompetence, and the register changes in the second half; the narrative says plainly that housework is invisible labour and does not skip the harassment she faces at work. The gender-role argument of the eighties is at its centre. Stan Dragoti directed from a screenplay by John Hughes, with Michael Keaton and Teri Garr. Who it's for: those who like eighties family comedy. Who it's not for: viewers who find gender roles handled in the language of the period uncomfortable.