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Thanks, no, is their response. Dad (Gary Cole) is still reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Mom (Shelley Long) confidently orders 20 lbs. of red meat for a family feast; cholesterol is no more part of her world view than Beavis and Butt-head are. The eldest daughter Marcia (Christine Taylor), who still ties up the bathroom every morning giving her long blond hair the 3,000 daily brushstrokes she deems necessary to maintain its luster, is outraged by an attempt at a French kiss ("I thought you were from Nebraska," she tells the boy) and sweetly oblivious to her best pal's lesbian longings. Her younger sister Jan (Jennifer Elise Cox) is, by Brady standards, more troubled. What's the problem, inquires the guidance counselor who's seen it all-suicidal thoughts, bulimia, pregnancy? Nope, sibling rivalry and the justifiable fear that her glasses make her look nerdy.
The implicit acknowledgement that the Bunch always was out of it (on TV Vietnam never left its muddy footprints on their AstroTurf yard) is good self-satire. More important, the Bradys represent the manners and morals idealized by conservatives. But in fin-de-siecle America they just look silly, and this movie suggests (probably unintentionally) that we have to find new ways and words to express our best impulses. If dumbness is a large part of our problem, then The Brady Bunch Movie is a small (and oddly cheery) part of its solution.