Parental Guidance is a 2012 American family comedy film directed by Andy Fickman and written by Lisa Addario and Joe Syracuse. It stars Billy Crystal, Bette Midler, Marisa Tomei, and Tom Everett Scott, and follows a couple who are asked to look after their grandchildren by their skeptical daughter, while she and her husband are out of town.
This was the final 20th Century Fox film to be financed by Dune Entertainment as part of a deal with the studio; shortly after, the company merged with RatPac Entertainment and struck a financing deal with Warner Bros. It was theatrically released on December 25, 2012, to negative reviews from critics but was a commercial success, grossing $119.8 million from a $25 million budget.
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Plot
Artie Decker is fired from his job as a sports commentator for the minor league Fresno Grizzlies, due to his old-fashioned personality and lack of social media savvy. His daughter, web developer Alice, calls him and his wife Diane, asking them to come to Atlanta to babysit her children while she and her husband Phil attend an entrepreneur convention in South Carolina. Artie and Diane conflict with Phil and Alice's helicopter parenting and learn of their grandchildren's various problems - the eldest daughter Harper is an overachiever, the middle son Turner has stutter, and the youngest son Barker has an imaginary friend, Carl the Kangaroo.
