‘Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair’: A Revival That Keeps the Heart of the Show in Mind [REVIEW]
4.5/5 camera asides
Growing up, I was raised by two families: My own, and the one I sat down every week to watch on Malcolm in the Middle from 2000-2006. My own home life was rather tame, so getting to live in Malcolm’s chaos for a half-hour was always an entertaining foray into a world I would never experience. It also helped that the show was almost unfairly funny and honest in its portrayal of middle-class American life. For many of us growing up with the show, it was easy to pin aspects of our own lives onto these characters and their situations.
Now, twenty years later, that family is back on our screens, and it’s almost like they never went away. They’re the somewhat-distant family you think about and check in on occasionally to see if things are still the same, and knowing that they are loosens a little ball in your chest you didn’t know had formed. The world at large has changed in the last twenty years, but Malcolm, for the most part, hasn’t. And that’s its charm.
The four-part Hulu revival reunites Frankie Muniz (Malcolm), Bryan Cranston (Hal), and Jane Kaczmarek (Lois) and throws us back into the thick of their antics. Lois is trying to plan the perfect 40th anniversary party for her and Hal, and Malcolm doesn’t want anything to do with it. It isn’t because he doesn’t love them, though. It’s because they circulate the same childhood traumas, and sometimes loving someone better requires you to put some distance between them.
Family makes you crazy
The driving factor for Malcolm both new and old is intergenerational trauma. Lois didn’t have a perfect mother growing up, and though she did better with her kids, it still wasn’t enough to wholly break free of the cycle. Malcolm wants to be the one to do that, which is why it comes as a shock to Hal and Lois when they drop in unannounced that not only has he been avoiding them and lying for years, but that he also has a teenaged daughter named Leah (Keeley Karsten). However, in trying so hard to keep the two halves of his lives apart, he ends up making things worse, especially for his girlfriend, Tristan (Kiana Madeira), who witnessed the whole thing.
Keeping Life’s Still Unfair as a reunion special rather than a reboot is part of what makes it work. No one wanted a full season of seeing how dysfunctional the family still is. What we did want was to see where they are, and whether or not anyone had done any soul-searching (they haven’t). Basing it around a milestone like a 40th wedding anniversary is another part of its success. It needed that structure to wrap itself around and grow from there.
The most important undercurrent of the original run was that Hal and Lois were, above all else, deeply in love. Nothing could tear them apart. So it only makes sense for the revival to remind us that, yes, they are still together and still the exact same. And with my own parents reaching their 46th wedding anniversary this year, I know that it isn’t always easy.
The cameos are aplenty, and we get to see where the rest of the family is at: Francis (Christopher Kennedy Masterson) is still with his wife Piama (Emy Coligado), the second-eldest son Reese (Justin Berfield) is, frankly, still a mess, and their youngest child Kelly (Vaughan Murrae), who is smart and conniving in their own right. The show does a great job of building Kelly in, making them feel like they had also been a part of the original run. And there is also Jamie (Anthony Timpano), the youngest, who is now also grown up, but with an unfortunately small amount of screen time that doesn’t give us much insight into who he is now.
But being a part of a family is worth it
Life’s Still Unfair continues Malcolm‘s classic tricks that helped lead to the prevalence of the single-camera sitcom, including the breaking of the fourth wall, a trait Leah has seemingly inherited. It’s zany and unapologetic and just as gross as it’s always been. Though it may not be quite as iconic as its predecessor, there are many scenes that stand out in their own right, highlighting that the focus of the writing hasn’t changed.
Having Cranston back as Hal is also truly a gift. Though he took off with Breaking Bad in the mid-aughts, he’s always been a comedic legend, and his physicality as Hal could make otherwise unremarkable scenes remarkable. He has a gift like Buster Keaton, or Jim Carrey, and seeing him utilize it again in this way is something close to magical. Likewise, Kaczmarek always had to tread a thin line as Lois, and in a lesser actor she could have easily been one-note. But you still get the sense that she’s trying, in her own way, even now; the love is there, just maybe muddled a bit. There’s that trauma again.
It feels disingenuous to try to compare the original run and the revival. Life’s Still Unfair didn’t set out to try to do something that Malcolm didn’t. Rather, it’s like an extension. An addendum. A new print of an old story that now has an epilogue at the end. It’s nostalgia for those who grew up with it, but it also very much still has something to say.
(Featured image: Disney/David Bukach)
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