Harvey (Martin Mull) and Kate Holroyd (Tuesday Weld) are having disagreements about their marriage. With the opening scene of Harvey ready for morning sex by saying "Good morning America." Kate replies she wants to have a serious adult discussion about where their marriage is headed. Harvey replies, "Goodbye hard-on." This pretty much sets the pace for the film. 

SERIAL is a no-holds-tongue charming and witty comedy about sex, marriage, religion and new age health in the midst of a changing world from the older, more practical world of what is in front of you is real and good to a strange dissonent gap of recognizing that the world is changing whether you like it or not. The film centers around Harvey, Kate, and Joanie, who is the misunderood and never heard daughter who goes off to find a family of her own. She finds this through a new age cult who accepts her immediately with more love than she knows what to do with.

Kate and Harvey decide to split up and find what they are looking for in their marriage through meaningless sex, superficial spirituality and fleeting friends. Harvey wants more sex which he discovers through a young post-hippie, health nut who wants more sex than he can handle. Alternatively, his new sexy secretary invites him to an orgy, which Harvey soon realizes he is not as open sexually as he once thought. Kate. on the other hand, finds her man in the form of Paco, a Latino animal hair dresser unbeknownst of his bisexual preference, only to be caught off guard by her own hairdresser who is proudly gay, but was already involved with Paco. He sets Kate straight in the midst of his anger and gives her a new haircut.

But the film is about how to keep things from falling apart. As the title SERIAL suggests, maintaing a level of continuousness or constancy in life is difficult when one is unwilling to make changes that happens in the world. A, sort of, series of mid-life crises on all fronts, with Harvey and Kate at the forefront. But this is all held together perfectly with the theme song “You Hold On or You Fall Off” that reeks of 80’s theme song that would make Kenny Loggins envious.

Its a big cast of characters that have their own issues with sexuality, relationships, commitment and marriage, that are played out around the central characters of Mull and Weld, who are also dealing with their daughters problem of not feeling loved by her parents. Even if this is miles away from his usual cult horror films, Christopher Lee is strangely fitting in this role as head CEO and motorcycle gang leader Spike, a testament to his greatness! This not a situational comedy, but one of witty dialogue that has an earthy vibe to it. Everyone speaks frankly to each other that somehow, by today’s standards seems strangely shocking. The open talk of sex and race is refreshingly funny that Tarantino has yet to come to terms with because SERIAL is not shocking, but real.

A generally underrated film, but certainly has stood the test of time and seems more relavant in today's culture than, perhaps, at the cusp of the 80's.

SERIAL is presented in widescreen format and the sound and picture both look excellent. As usual, Legend Films puts together a nice presentation to their films, however, equally usual is this is a barebones disc with no extras. This title is distributed with permission from Paramount Pictures through Legend Films. For more info, check out their site.