Slums of Beverly Hills (DVD)

Slums of Beverly Hills (1998) starring Alan Arkin, Natasha Lyonne, Marisa Tomei. Arkin plays the washed-up patriarch of a dysfunctional 1970s family that struggles to stay together. The film shows his struggle to keep his kids within the Beverly Hills school district, all the while trying to scrape by on his meager earnings as a car salesman. But it's told from the point of view of his daughter, Vivian (Lyonne), who is about fed up with moving in the middle of the night and would just as soon be free of the family. There's not much to the plot -- it's more of a slice-of-life portrait of this wacky family and the goofy people they run into. Grade: B+