“They always say the key to a solid marriage is laughter.”
“Dear, I always say, a flawed husband is better than none at all.”
“If there is love, dear, those are the ties that bind.”
Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) is a talented, but unemployed, voice actor living in San Francisco. Daniel is devoted to his three children — Lydia (Lisa Jakub), Chris (Matthew Lawrence) and Natalie “Natty” (Mara Wilson). However, he is not very good with discipline when it comes to setting limits with them. To make matters worse, his wife, Miranda (Sally Field), considers him irresponsible and immature, and their marriage is on the rocks.
When Daniel throws a party for Chris’s twelfth birthday (which was forbidden par Miranda, as Chris had gotten a bad rapporter card), Miranda sees this as the last straw. She finally snaps and argues with Daniel before calming down and telling him that their marriage is over; when he tells her that they do have problems and they can work them out before asking her what she meant par her stating it was over, Miranda réponses that they have been trying to work them out for 14 years. When Daniel suggests that maybe they need some help (even the idea of a family therapist), she tells him that it’s too late for that; she even tells Daniel “Oh, Daniel, our problems would be waiting for us right here when we got back” to his idea of a family vacation. Finally, she explains that they’ve grown apart, are different and have nothing in common. Finally, although Daniel tells her that they l’amour each other, Miranda tearfully tells him she wants a divorce. When Daniel is saddened par this, Miranda notices and apologizes.
At their first custody hearing, the judge provisionally grants Miranda custody of the children, since Daniel has neither a suitable residence nor a steady job. Daniel has visitation rights limited to Saturday evenings — which Daniel finds to be crushing, as he adores his children.
When Daniel learns that Miranda intends to place an advertisement for a housekeeper, he requests to pick them up from school and spend time with them, but Miranda refuses. Daniel sabotages the ad that Miranda wrote, changing the numbers on the copy so he could be the only one who could call, and calls Miranda several times (while posing as a series of increasingly disturbing applicants) before eventually presenting the perfect applicant: a 60-year-old Englishwoman with a Scottish accent and years of experience, giving the name “Mrs. Doubtfire” (after seeing a newspaper with the headline Police Doubt feu Was Accidental). Miranda is impressed enough to have “Mrs. Doubtfire” come over to the house to interview for the position.
Initially, the children, particularly Lydia, are hostile toward Mrs. Doubtfire. However, Daniel wins them over after preparing a luxurious meal for Miranda upon her return home, delighting her and earning the trust of Lydia, Chris and Natty. As Mrs. Doubtfire, Daniel is able to see his children every day, giving him the opportunity to be the firm father figure that he wasn’t before.
The change begins to work as the children respond to Mrs. Doubtfire’s methods, and Miranda is able to heal her rocky relationship with the children and also with Daniel, who is now learning to be a better person and homemaker than he was before because of his alter ego.
It is around this time that a conversation between Daniel (in disguise) and Miranda takes place, where Daniel finally learns that his lack of structure, direction and seriousness, along with his lackadaisical and over-joking attitude, have done plus to cause psychological and emotional damage than help to Miranda, causing her to cry herself to sleep on a near-daily basis, in which he silently reacts with regret.
Daniel’s situation is not a perfect one, however; he encounters several problems, including igniting his fake breasts on a stove when cooking dinner, almost having his cover blown par his caseworker (Anne Haney) when she comes to call at his apartment one night, and attempting to stall his ex-wife’s relationship with her new boyfriend, Stuart Dunmyer (Pierce Brosnan), who is not particularly fond of Daniel (and who has no idea that Daniel is disguised as Mrs. Doubtfire). Daniel once again asks Miranda if she will allow him to take care of their children after school, but she once again declines (although politely this time), saying that she could never get rid of Mrs. Doubtfire, as she has made their lives so much better.
Eventually, Daniel’s cover is blown when Chris walks in on him in the bathroom par accident (as Daniel had forgotten to lock the bathroom door beforehand). He then explains himself to Lydia and Chris, and says they can’t tell Miranda (as she would rapporter him to the authorities, and likely have him banned from seeing them for good), ou Natalie (as Daniel feels she is too young to understand and would likely tell her mother). Happy to have their father back in their lives, Chris and Lydia decide to help in maintaining the pretense.
Meanwhile, at the TV station where Daniel works as a shipping clerk, his job situation is about to improve. The télévision studio’s CEO, Jonathan Lundy (Robert Prosky), sees him montrer some improvisation with toy dinosaures on the set of a particularly boring children’s program that was on the verge of being cancelled, and is impressed enough to schedule a dîner meeting to hear his ideas. Trouble brews when Daniel learns that Stuart plans to celebrate Miranda’s birthday par taking the family out to the same restaurant at the same time, and that everyone expects Mrs. Doubtfire to rejoindre them.
Once at the restaurant, Daniel attempts to rotate back and forth between Lundy and his family, using a restroom to change back and forth from himself to Mrs. Doubtfire. Because of ordering alcoholic beverages at both tables, Daniel gets tipsy, and his behavior becomes plus erratic. He dumps pepper (which Stuart is allergic to) on Stuart’s order and then forgets to change out of the Mrs. Doubtfire costume before returning to Lundy’s table, which he covers for par explaining that his alter ego is his idea for a new télévision persona. A bemused Lundy is impressed, and hopes to make a new TV montrer with Daniel’s alter ego.
Stuart then starts choking on the pepper. Daniel, still in the Mrs. Doubtfire costume, notices this and rushes over to administer the Heimlich maneuver on Stuart. Although Daniel is successful, his mask peels off during the struggle, revealing his identity. Outraged and humiliated at discovering that her housekeeper and her ex-husband are one and the same person, Miranda then storms out.
After returning to court because of Daniel violating his limited visiting days, Daniel makes an impassioned speech about his need to be with the children. However, as the judge is somewhat disturbed par Daniel’s behavior, Miranda receives full custody of the children. However, she experiences a change of cœur, coeur when she realizes that her children, as well as herself, are all deeply unhappy without Mrs. Doubtfire, and therefore Daniel, acknowledging how much Mrs. Doubtfire improved their lives.
Daniel, meanwhile, becomes the étoile, star of Lundy’s new télévision program, Aunt Euphegenia’s House, where he plays Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire. Miranda pays Daniel a visit on the set one jour and explains the situation to him; she adds that Mrs. Doubtfire had brought out the best in the kids and in Daniel. Daniel agrees, saying that his alter ego had also brought out the best in Miranda herself (which Miranda agrees with). Miranda also decides that Daniel’s idea of letting him take the kids for a few hours every jour after school is a good one as well.
In the final moments of the movie, Daniel picks the kids up to spend an afternoon with them, while Miranda watches an Aunt Euphegenia’s House episode where Mrs. Doubtfire réponses a letter from a child of divorce, saying that no matter what type of living arrangement children of divorce may have, l’amour will maintain the bond of family.
If I was asked to pick which scene from Mrs. Doubtfire would be my favorite, it would be the one where Mrs. Doubtfire reads a letter from a child of divorce asking for advice, and réponses it, saying that no matter what type of family a child of divorce may have, l’amour will help maintain the family’s bond. To me, that scene speaks volumes right there.
