The problems with "Mighty Fine" begin with the genre. Let's make this clear, it's not a comedy. There are a few moments and lines at the beginning that aren't as serious and fairly humorous, but it's a drama. The plot quickly devolves into a full-on family drama with serious issues where the characters need to rely on their internal strength to rise above.Joe Fine (Chazz Palminteri) moves his whole family from Brooklyn to New Orleans in 1974, and literally he moves them since he didn't tell them in advance. Surprise! Oddly most of the characters don't see anything wrong with that. The other main member of the Fine clan is Maddie (Rainey Qualley) she's the one that doesn't think this is quite right and is the only one we can understand, care for and sympathize with. The younger daughter, Natalie (Jodelle Ferland), is fine too but she's much younger and more care free.The father has money, status and other similar issues. He has a need to provide for his family and if that is ever in jeopardy he becomes increasingly unstable. It unfortunately was probably a common characteristic among war vets of the era. And that's why I have such a problem with this being classified as a comedy. The story probably applies to other families and it's not likely something they want to relive as a light-hearted laugh-fest! I wonder if Adopt Films would be willing to pay for their therapy afterwards? I doubt it.Now that you're fairly warned about the dramatic issues explored, the teenage daughters were good characters, likable, which is pretty important and the young actresses were good (include Andie MacDowell's daughter Rainey Qualley). Palminteri gives a forceful performance but don't expect him to veer too far from his mobster typecast roots. The poorest realized character was the "mother". That word goes in quotation marks because I feel sorry for anybody who was "raised" by that character. She's not a terrible person, she's just not a person. MacDowell put on a terrible European accent and paraded around the house parroting everything that her unstable, deceitful and volatile husband said. Thankfully "Mighty Fine" is pretty short and eventually the daughters become their own role models.Who Might Like This: People who like 70s-era family dramas; people who like stories of teenagers finding the internal strength to rise above their circumstances.

The movie is loosely based on writer/director Debbie Goodstein's childhood experiences with her family, so it's kind of based on actual events. Joe Fine (who is Chazz Palminteri's character) has a great sense of pride for himself and his family and that pride can take the turn for good and bad since he sometimes lashes out at his family. His wife, Stella (Played by Andie MacDowell who I also love) is constantly defending her husband's behavior since he is the provider for the family and it takes a tole on the children since they feel their Mother is kind of like a door mat since she acts like their father can do no wrong.They have two children, two girls to be exact, named Maddie and Natalie. The oldest daughter is not afraid to speak her mind about her dislike for their father's behavior towards the family, while the younger daughter takes after her mother and constantly forgiving and defending him. The movie deals with the families struggle with their conflicting personalities and dealing with their relationship and bond as a family and the strain that Joe's personality and treatment of the family has on them. Chazz Palminteri is honestly amazing as this character and his performance truly makes the film shine.

In the movie Mighty Fine, Joe Fine instructs the movers from Exodus Moving Company to be very careful with his disco ball when his family is relocating from Brooklyn, NY, to New Orleans, LA. I guess having a personal disco ball was a status symbol in 1974! Just like the tiny mirrors on a disco ball, the movie "Mighty Fine" shows us the many different facets of a family, especially when that family is dealing with Joe Fine, portrayed by Chazz Palminteri. In a live chat after a recent online preview of the film, Palminteri called Joe Fine a "paradox," a man who vacillated between angry rages and being the benevolent charmer who tried to keep everyone happy.When the Fine family, consisting of dad Joseph, mom Stella, (who spent time in hiding as a child during the Holocaust); 17-year-old Maddie, and younger sister Natalie pull up stakes and move to Louisiana in 1974, we learn that the women of the family hope this move will dilute Joe's tendencies to angry rages. The deterioration of the financing for Joe's business, though, revives the rage monster and it wakes up hungrier than ever.Stepping away from the heavy topic for a moment, I have to share the fun and retro-themed joy of all the 70's paraphernalia in this film. (I was 10 in 1974, the year in which the film is set.) Since there was a live chat occurring among all of the participant bloggers when we watched the film online, it was amusing to hear reactions ranging from, "Oh My God people once smoked inside houses!" to "Oh yeah, I can remember when we had to dial the phone using that rotary dial." Back to the film's "heavy topic." It was sobering to hear all of the experiences with emotional abuse that the participant bloggers shared. Women whose mothers made courageous decisions to leave everything behind in order to get out of abusive situations; women who had been victims of abuse themselves; women who hypothesized that in 2012 Joe Fine would have had access to a mental health professional who would do a whole lot more than his family physician, who Joe convinced that the only problem was a bit of business stress.Natalie Fine recites a poem at the end of the movie. A line from that poem stayed with me after I watched the film: "There's a monster in dad, and it makes him wicked mad." When asked about emotionally abusive parents such as Joe, Chazz Palminteri said that every parent needs to remember: "You are a mirror." What did Maddie see in the mirror of her mother when she tried to placate Joseph? What did both girls see when Stella made her final decision? You'll have to watch the movie to find out.

I found Mighty Fine very touching and true to what it is really like to be in a family when someone has a mental illness. The cast did a fantastic job of showing what mental illnesses can do to a family - especially bipolar disorder - how things can be fine on minute and explosive the next. I liked the way they portrayed Joe (the dad) as a loving, kind hearted father and then showed what happened when he had an episode - you knew there was something wrong with him, but that he wasn't necessarily a bad person. It definitely brought back memories and felt so real to me! Having dealt with someone who was bipolar in my own life, I found myself relating to the characters and they tugged at my heartstrings. I won't give away the ending...but this is a must see as far as I am concerned!