Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) on Netflix
PG-1319932h 5mComedyDramaFamily
Voice actor Daniel Hillard is a devoted father, but his wife Miranda finds him immature and unreliable. She asks for a divorce; he answers her ad for a housekeeper as Mrs. Doubtfire.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.1/10320,194 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
Daniel Hillard dubs voices for cartoons in San Francisco and raises three children, Lydia, Chris and Natalie, with his wife Miranda, who regards him as immature and unreliable. He quits a job over a script and throws Chris a chaotic birthday party; Miranda comes home early and asks for a divorce. Unemployed and homeless, Daniel loses custody and keeps Saturday visits, with shared custody dependent on steady work and a suitable residence within three months. He rents an apartment, takes a clerk's job at a television station, and learns that Miranda wants a housekeeper. He alters her classified ad, phones as a string of unsuitable applicants, then poses as Mrs. Doubtfire, an elderly British nanny. His brother Frank, a makeup artist, and Frank's partner Jack assemble the disguise for the interview.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The makeup for Mrs. Doubtfire took four hours to apply, and Robin Williams later recounted how he used to walk through San Francisco in full makeup and costume as Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire, on one occasion visiting a sex shop to buy a large dildo and other toys.
- Over 30 minutes of scenes were cut, which would have made the film 157 minutes long, including a whole subplot in which Daniel, dressed as Mrs. Doubtfire, fools nosy neighbor Gloria Chaney (Polly Holliday) into killing her flowers by spraying dog urine on them.
- British censors first refused the film a U or PG certificate and gave it a 12, because 20th Century Fox would not remove three controversial lines; after the distributors appealed, the BBFC rerated it PG once thirteen seconds of sexual innuendo were cut, and it was rereleased in May 1994.
- Director Chris Columbus said in a 2015 interview that they shot with multiple cameras at once, like shooting a documentary, to capture the cast's reactions to Robin Williams's improvisation, and that they ran out of film after shooting too much of it.
- Blake Lively unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Natalie Hillard before Mara Wilson won the part, and Warren Beatty had been Anne Fine's first choice for the role of Daniel Hillard / Mrs. Doubtfire.
SPOILER
Robin Williams said in 2011 that a sequel could never be written because the end of the first film reveals who Mrs. Doubtfire is, leaving her on screen for five minutes before she transitions into some old Russian woman.- Tim Allen was offered two of the film's roles, Daniel Hillard and Stu Dunmeyer, but he declined both of them.
