Barry Sonnenfeld has always told stories about outsiders making their way in a new world, but in RV he tells a story about doo-doo. The film is covered in it. The Munro family's RV is nicknamed "the big rolling turd," and the male characters constantly talk about using the bathroom to "launch an ICBM." An early set piece is concerned with draining the RV's septic tank, an exercise that draws an audience and ends with Williams humiliated and soaked in yellow, liquefied excrement before Daniels hoses him off, with special attention paid to hosing off Williams' crotch. Later in the movie, Williams will feign diarrhea to escape to his business meeting, and he spends many scenes sitting on the toilet while using his laptop. Slobber, chewed food, brains, and liquefied human fat also make unpleasant appearances.
But here the film inverts the Deliverance formula: The more the Munros are covered in feces, the more they seem to enjoy it. As they move toward the ripe, fertile center of the country, they come alive. As their gleaming RV becomes more and more decrepit, they reconnect with their own essential selves until finally they pass through a suggestive mud flume and come out on the other side dirty, caked with mud, and streaked with other, less pleasant, substances. Immediately they adjourn to a bar and get drunk, enjoying each other's bodies and souls for the first time.
As Michael McDonald might one day sing, "I'm Just Reportin' the Facts."
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