Ever wonder what it would be like to be a screenwriter on cocaine? By watching “My Brother the Pig”, you’ll be able to live this fantasy vicariously through Matthew Flynn! How else do you explain an eight year-old boy being turned into a pig via spilling a “frozen thing” (basically every snack known to man mixed with ice cream and frozen) onto ancient rocks? How else would him turning into a pig be an allegory on his inner animal make sense? How else would do you explain that the only way to convert him back to a human is by traveling to Mexico City and pouring a strange substance on him under a full moon that gleams through a rock shaped like a coyote (whilst being chased by a mad butcher)? With cocaine!
I’m sure cocaine also played a part in Judge Reinhold, Eve Mendes and Scarlett Johansson taking parts in this film. Well, maybe not Scarlett, as she was in her early teens and simply needed recognition. Then again, she had done “Home Alone 3” and “The Horse Whisperer” before this, so even this is beneath her. That and Drew Barrymore got into drugs at an early age, so we can’t put it past Scarlett. Hell, I wouldn’t even put it past Nick Fuoco (who plays the titular pig brother) and Alex D. Linz (his friend, Freud) to have partaken in some cocaine in order to do this film! Even by family film standards, this is bad!
Scarlett Johansson gets saddled with the thankless role of Kathy Caldwell, a snotty teenager who thinks the world revolves around her. She’s constantly getting into fights with her brother George (Fuoco) over the pranks he plays on her, though seeing how she acts, we can’t blame him for doing them. Kathy is the type of whiny girl that makes you want to stick needles in your ear simply to drown her out! While she dreams of going to France, we dream of her getting her heart broken and getting hit with a dose of reality! Too harsh?
While she dreams of France, her parents (Judge Reinhold & Romy Walthall) are actually going there. They’ve planned a romantic vacation much to the chagrin of Kathy. This is a convenient way to get the parents out of the picture and, most likely, for Reinhold to appear in this as minimally as possible while still picking up a paycheck. Watching over the children is Matilda (Eve Mendes, in one of her earlier roles, so I guess I can discredit the cocaine hunch), their live-in nanny who’s as stereotypical as they come. Kathy relates her to a combination of Mother Theresa and Mary Poppins except very annoying, which is apropos. She’s always cheery and is a walking cliché. George destroys the kitchen (by making that “frozen thing” I mentioned earlier) and she lets him off easy with a (beautiful) smirk.
She did inadvertently punish him by turning him into a pig. You see, those ancient rocks I mentioned earlier belonged to her. George went snooping around in her room (at the behest of Kathy) and began to read the spell book and accidentally dropped his “frozen thing” onto the rocks. When he went to pick it up, a spell was cast upon him and he was turned into a pig. While this is hard to believe for all involved, they know it’s George as he follows all of their commands and grabs things that he likes. Whatever works!
Knowing that her parents would ground her for life, Kathy freaks out and demands that Matilda change him back. Too bad she doesn’t know how. Thankfully, her grandmother knows how, but she lives in Mexico City and doesn’t own a phone. So, along with George’s friend, Freud (Linz, who you may remember from “Home Alone 3”; he and Scarlett must’ve been buddies), they hop into Mom’s prized car and head down to Mexico City!
Here we get dozens of racial stereotypes. Oh joy! Barely any of the citizens speak Spanish, so Kathy thinks talking slowly in English will translate well. This doesn’t make a lick of sense, since you’re still speaking in a language they don’t understand. If someone spoke to me in Spanish slowly, I still wouldn’t understand them. Matilda’s grandmother makes food that’s different, so Kathy doesn’t like it. She runs away and bumps into two local girls who speak perfect English and have cable. They’re enamored with Kathy because she looks like Rachel from “Friends” (I don’t see the resemblance) and knows a lot about makeup. This leads to a scene where they try on makeup. You know, because that’s always fun.
At this point, the film meanders. Erik Fleming noticed he didn’t have enough material to stretch the film to an hour and a half, so he padded a little in the middle. This results in George being taken by a mad butcher who chases Kathy and Freud when they try and save him. Somewhere in between Freud exploits his friend for money and talks to a snooty High School graduate vacationing with her parents that goes nowhere. Maybe there was a deleted scene where she meets Kathy and the two, sharing a strong bond in snootiness, burst into flames because the world couldn’t handle that much teen angst in one setting.
George eventually gets turned back into a human (spoiler alert!) and everybody goes home happy. Kathy learns her lesson and begins to appreciate her brother and… well, that was the only lesson. As you can tell, this film is excruciating! Yet, due to it’s cast, it’s strangely compelling. It’s hard to believe a film exists where Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes transform an eight year-old boy into a pig. It exists folks and every bad film connoisseur needs to see it! It’ll be painful, but also rewarding!
Final Rating: FF (Fun Failure)