WHEN YOUR DAD’S AN UNDERTAKER, YOUR MOM’S IN HEAVEN, AND YOUR GRANDMA’S GOT A SCREW LOOSE… IT’S GOOD TO HAVE A FRIEND WHO UNDERSTANDS YOU. EVEN IF HE IS A BOY.Ā
Summer, 1972; funeral director Harry Sultenfuss (Dan Aykroyd) hires a new makeup artist (Jamie Lee Lee Curtis), and at the same time his 11-year-old daughter (Anna Chlumsky) has an obsession with death. A charming piece of nostalgia (aided by the music) that gives a couple of young actors a chance to shine ā Chlumsky in her breakthrough as the hypochondriac kid who lives in a house where sheās always reminded of death, and Macaulay Culkin as the cute, nerdy boy who becomes her best friend. Hardly a portrait of childhood for the ages, but sweet and eventually irresistibly touching. Thatās also true for the romance between the two adult leads.
1991-U.S. 102 min. Color. Directed byĀ Howard Zieff. Cast: Dan Aykroyd (Harry Sultenfuss), Jamie Lee Curtis (Shelly DeVoto), Macaulay Culkin (Thomas J. Sennett), Anna Chlumsky (Vada Sultenfuss), Richard Masur, Griffin Dunne.
Trivia: Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Bill Murray were reportedly considered for the part of Harry. Followed by My Girl 2 (1994).