Mrs. Doubtfire is a film that focuses on a marriage going through a divorce. As a result of the divorce Daniel, the father, is only allowed to see his children once a week. In an attempt to spend more time with his children, Daniel disguises as the perfect old English nanny that his wife, Miranda, is looking to hire. As the new nanny, Daniel becomes the perfect father and spouse. In this film not only do you see the many different types of relationships, you also see concepts of interpersonal communication entwined.
The first two concepts of interpersonal communication running through the film are those of relationship deterioration and repair. The third concept that is weaved throughout the entire film is that of using humor to reduce tension in communication. In this paper I will explore these three concepts, and how they are applied in the film as well as throughout the characters relationships with one another. The most obvious concept observed in the film Mrs. Doubtfire is that of relationship deterioration.
This can be described as the stage in a relationship that sees the weakening of bonds between the parties and that represents the downside of the relationship progression. This interpersonal communication concept is observed in the first scenes of the movie. Right after the father Daniel, played by Robin Williams, decides to throw his son a birthday party without the consent of the mother, played by Sally Field, we find out that Sally Field’s character Miranda is unhappy in her marriage.
Miranda says to Daniel, “We have grown apart, we are different, and we have nothing in common. ” In this scene we are shown the deterioration of a marriage or in more general terms the deterioration of a relationship. The concept of relationship deterioration was well applied in the film. We see the relationship deterioration very well portrayed in the scene mentioned above and it follows throughout the entire movie.
Not only does it show the fact that this marriage between Robin Williams and Sally Field’s characters is falling apart, but it also demonstrates how these two characters are able to communicate to each other that their relationship is indeed falling apart. A concept of interpersonal communication that couples with the deterioration of the marriage is that of repairing relationships. This stage of a relationship can be described as it having two components; one component of relationship repair is intrapersonal repair and the second one is interpersonal repair.
Intrapersonal repair in relationships involves analyzing what went wrong and considering ways of solving relational difficulties. On the other hand interpersonal repair involves talking about the problems in the relationship, the corrections you would like to see, and perhaps what you would be willing to do and what you want the other person to do. Robin William’s character, Daniel, not only tries to fix his broken relationship with his wife, but also that of his children. The first glimpse we see of this is right after Miranda says that things are not working out.
Daniel responds by suggesting that they go to a “family therapist”, “work out the problems”, or even “take a vacation” but this was not effective. Miranda felt as if these efforts should have been made a long time ago. Things had now come to the point where they were This film does not focus as much on repairing the relationship between the husband and wife as it does with repairing the relationship between the father and the children. The most obvious example of relationship repairing with the children is that of Robin Williams transforming into Mrs.
Doubtfire. In an attempt to be near his children, Daniel becomes the perfect English nanny that teaches his children right from wrong, which cooks for the family and cleans the house. In the role of Mr. Doubtfire, Daniel is able to be the father he should have been to his children when he was still together with his wife. This concept of repairing relationships is also well applied in Mrs. Doubtfire it carries throughout the entire film. The extent to which the father goes through to see his children is pretty extreme, but in the end he gets to see his children.
Another concept observed throughout the rest of the film is that of humor. Humor can be used in situations as a way to bring lightheartedness to a tense situation. However, humor in excess can be a negative thing. In Mrs. Doubtfire, Robin Williams’ character uses humor to reduce tension to the difficult situations he gets himself into. His humor, however, tends to backfire. We see this after the birthday party he throws for his son. His childlike humor is one of the things that was distancing him from his separated wife.
She can no longer relate to him and his immature nature. Another instance where we see the repercussions of his humor is in one of the final scenes where the judge grants Daniel minimal visitation rights due to the fact that he has “fooled many people to believe that he was an 60 year old woman. ” The humor he is using is a barrier to true and effective communication. Without Daniel learning to communicate effectively he will not know how to let those around him know how he really feels.
