We Watched 'Drunk Parents' so You Don't Have To

*Warning: Spoilers for Netflix's Drunk Parents ahead*

Drunk Parents, a comedy starring Alec Baldwin and Salma Hayek, just arrived on Netflix. The movie follows the shenanigans of two drunk parents whose financial difficulties lead them to make some (drunk) decisions that end up having unfortunate consequences. 

The movie has already garnered buzz for The Razzies, the Oscars for the year's worst movies, given its bad jokes and somewhat meandering plotline. But just what is Drunk Parents about and why is it rated R? Keep scrolling for everything you need to know about the film.

Drunk Parents starts off with Frank (Alec Baldwin) and Nancy (Salma Hayek) Teagarten tearfully bidding farewell to college-bound daughter Rachel (Michelle Veintimilla), before they head home to get drunk on the lawn of their massive estate in the suburbs. But while the Teagartens appear to have achieved all the goals of suburban life and the highest standards of materialism, audiences quickly learn that this is all a facade.

It turns out that despite their shiny black Range Rover and Tudor-style mansion, Frank and Nancy have been hiding their increasing financial difficulties from Rachel and their social circles. With Frank’s bankrupt business, the couple realizes that they don’t have the money to pay for their daughter’s college, save their home, or pay off their car. 

So Frank and Nancy decide to rectify the situation. It starts with an ill-fated yard sale, but after that goes nowhere fast, the couple starts scheming. With just days before their car is about to get repossessed, Frank accidentally (and drunkenly) rents out the home of his wealthy out-of-town neighbor (Aasif Mandvi).

But it turns out that Carl (Jim Gaffigan), the man Frank rents the house out to, is a registered sex offender, which the couple only finds out when he arrives and starts going door-to-door as a result of his court-mandated disclosure.

In an effort to not link their neighbor’s house to a sex offender, Frank and Nancy switch houses with Carl but when a vigilante group shows up at their neighbor’s house, the couple is mistaken for pedophiles themselves, bound, gagged, and kidnapped to the middle of the woods, where they’re held at gunpoint. 

There are a lot of twists and turns that ensue, including a drunken night with two unhoused individuals (cameos by Colin Quinn and Will Ferrell) during which Frank and Nancy re-prioritize their lives and remember what’s really important. The next day they also come up with a new business idea that they later try to pitch to their country club friends (this again leads to more drunken shenanigans). 

At the end of the movie, Rachel comes home and finds everything out about her parents' financial situation, but ultimately, stands with them. The united front also helps to chase off the vigilantes who’re still after Frank and Nancy for pedophilia, and the family manages to get neighbor Nigel’s home back in order before he returns from out of town. The movie ends some months later, with the Teagartens hosting Thanksgiving with their family and friends.

While there doesn’t seem to be that much in the plot to warrant an R rating, Drunk Parents uses intentionally offensive humor throughout the film, to varying degrees of success. The profanity and abuse of alcohol alone might have earned it this rating, if not the choice to double down on bad choices and the refusal to learn anything until the very end of the movie. 

There are also a lot of questionable jokes in Drunk Parents, including the running jokes about sex offenders and pedophilia, the main characters making fun of someone who uses a wheelchair, the use of “accents,” and the depiction of an attempted sexual assault on Nancy by Will Ferrell's character, which is clearly meant to elicit laughs. 

Despite the feel-good ending that comes out of nowhere and the fact that Frank and Nancy seem to have come out on the other side as better people, there’s very little that redeems the characters, or the movie by the end of its hour-and-forty-minute run time.

Drunk Parents is now streaming on Netflix.