Documentaries about ordinary people hold a certain attraction—a perverse and voyeuristic one, but an attraction nonetheless. This is why reality TV in all its incarnations has become such a successful business and makes the documentary a medium to reconsider.
In My Parents’ Basement is meant to be a study of the tensions that arise when adults move back in with their parents. One would expect to sit in on family blowouts or watch as a mother walks in on her grown child in the throes of love but, alas, sex and violence must again be relegated to Hollywood.
Instead, one can only watch a parent seethe with the repressed urge to spank their 42-year-old son and seething simply does not hold the allure of a screaming match.
A documentary is never as exciting as you expect it to be, but then again, maybe that’s the closest to reality a director can get.
In My Parents’ Basement discusses the situations that result in a decision to live at home. Some do it to get a better start to their adult life, like Denise and David, who are saving up to buy their own house.
Others live at home to get their life back on track, like Nancy, who is only living at home for a few months while she starts her dog grooming business. Finally, there are weirdos who like living in their parents’ basement because it’s dark and they can be alone there.
Bob fits into this final category. If it weren’t for him, this documentary would border on being really lame.
Bob harbours contempt towards his family, when they seem the most accommodating of the three families involved. His mother buys him pizza because he doesn’t like the chicken she’s serving the rest of the family for dinner, and Bob responds by refusing to eat with them.
It’s no wonder Bob has trouble keeping a job. His people skills suck. In one segment he is casually walking to the fridge for a drink of water and states out of nowhere, “I’ve never been scared of dying. When you die, you don’t have to deal with anything anymore. I actually love the concept of dying. I’m anxious.”
In My Parents’ Basement is sometimes as boring as real life and other times so edited that the people are as one-dimensional as the cast of Survivor.
But what ultimately redeems the documentary is Bob, who, despite the director’s hopes of throwing light on the reality of living at home, is far stranger and more entertaining than anything that could have come out of Hollywood.
