Themes: Doctors and Patients, Assumed Identities, Starting Over
Main Cast: Loren Dean, Hope Davis, Jason Lee, Alfre Woodard, Mary McDonnell
Release Year: 1999
Country: US
Run Time: 118 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Lawrence Kasdan wrote and directed this comedy about a young psychologist named Mumford (Loren Dean), who arrives in a small town and sets up a practice. Mumford's style is short on analytic mumbo-jumbo and long on practical advice, and he soon finds that he has a long list of satisfied clients in his new home town, including many of the city's most prominent citizens. Mumford's advice also helps love bloom among the city's single residents. However, the city already had a psychologist, Ernest Delbanco (David Paymer), who is quickly losing business to Mumford. So Ernest starts asking questions: who is this Mumford, and just what are his qualifications? Mumford's supporting cast includes Ted Danson, Martin Short, Alfre Woodard, Hope Davis, Jason Lee, and Pruitt Taylor Vince. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
There's one almost every year, a terrific film that deserves to be at least a minor-league hit but passes unnoticed by the audience, unloved by the critics, and undersold by the studio. Such a picture is this likable small town comedy from writer/director Lawrence Kasdan. Loren Dean is just one of the diverse, well-chosen actors here, each of whom is perfect for his or her role, the sort of cast that only a highly intelligent filmmaker would assemble, the unifying factors between them being skill and a likeable quality. A number of oddball curves are thrown by Kasdan's loopy narrative but viewers are in the hands of an accomplished storyteller here, and every plot thread pays off or comes full circle by the end. Even the wildest confabulations of the plot (the most incredible one coming courtesy of Robert Stack and the TV show Unsolved Mysteries) don't bend the mind too much out of whack here, thanks to a consistency of mood and style that is the hallmark of a reliable filmmaker. Like any artist who's been around for a while, he's had well-deserved hits and misses, but Mumford (1999) goes down as Lawrence Kasdan's most unfairly ignored effort to date. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Steven W. Graham - Art Director, Jennifer Shull - Casting, Jon Hutman - Co-producer, Stephen P. Dunn - Co-producer, Linda Goldstein-Knowlton - Co-producer, Colleen Atwood - Costume Designer, Stephen P. Dunn - First Assistant Director, Lawrence Kasdan - Director, Carol Littleton - Editor, William Steinkamp - Editor, James Newton Howard - Composer (Music Score), Jon Hutman - Production Designer, Ericson Core - Cinematographer, Lawrence Kasdan - Producer, Charles Okun - Producer, Beth A. Rubino - Set Designer, Dawn Swiderski - Set Designer, John Pritchett - Sound/Sound Designer, Robert Grieve - Sound Editor, Lawrence Kasdan - Screenwriter
Mumford is a 1999 comedic feature film written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan. It is set in a small town where a new psychologist (Loren Dean) gives offbeat advice to the neurotic residents. Both the psychologist and the town are named "Mumford," a coincidence that eventually figures in the plot.
As a relative newcomer to town, Dr. Mumford seems charming and skillful to his neighbors and patients. His unique, frank approach to psychotherapy soon attracts patients away from the two therapists (David Paymer and Jane Adams) already working in the area.
Soon he is treating a variety of conditions, ranging from one man's infatuation with sexy film-noir heroines to an unhappy woman's shopping fetish. Mumford befriends a billionaire computer mogul (Lee) and a cafe waitress (Woodard) and he attempts to play matchmaker. He also begins to fall for a patient (Davis) who suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome.
Together with attorney Lionel Dillard (Short) — a patient Mumford had rejected because of his arrogance — the two local therapists conspire to try to find skeletons in Mumford's closet, hoping to destroy his reputation and revive their own practice. And there are indeed skeletons galore, as a confidante of Mumford's soon finds out.
Mumford was generally considered a pleasant but forgettable film. Many critics expressed a general approval of the movie but questioned the unpleasant back-story (which contrasted with the overall tone of the film).
