Together, Sonnenfeld and Rudnick created an unpredictable and brilliant satire (which is currently streaming on STARZ). For the sequel, Sonnenfeld brought in the playwright and humorist Paul Rudnick, who later became a regular in the pages of The New Yorker that Addams had once haunted. The film was a surprise hit, although it got mixed reviews, suffered from a convoluted plot of mistaken identity, and had a tortured production. In 1991, Barry Sonnenfeld directed the original movie The Addams Family, about the cartoonist Charles Addams’s famously morbid clan. The film is a perfect cup of dry cider with just the barest undertone of sweetness.
That’s why Addams Family Values, a sequel that turns 25 years old this week, remains the pinnacle of the subgenre-even if none of the characters ever sits down for a turkey dinner. The Thanksgiving story is, after all, quite a bit more complicated than its surface message of harmony between Pilgrims and Native Americans might suggest. The second component is a firm refutation of the holiday’s core mythos. The first is a celebration of family, whether actual kin or a makeshift community. The ideal Thanksgiving movie has at least two ingredients.
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