I don't agree with the OP entirely, but a lot of the people posting in this thread are misunderstanding one of his criticisms.
Regarding the alcohol - of course there are people under 21 who drink (including conservatives), and it's not necessarily illegal. But the OP didn't say that it was unrealistic for Barbara to drink alcohol, or that people under 21 never drink with their parents. He said that it was unrealistic for Armand and Albert to serve Barbara, under the circumstances.
Considering how desperate Armand was to please the Keeleys, and how conservative the Keeleys were, I also think it would be pretty strange for him to give their 17-year-old daughter alcohol, without even asking them first if they were okay with it.
Is that momentary lack of realism a huge deal? No, of course not. But this is an IMDB message board, where people come to analyze movies to death. I like it that way.
Re: the sophomore in college thing - do they say in the movie that Val is a sophomore? I was 20 throughout my entire junior year of college, and I didn't graduate from high school early, or anything like that. So unless the script actually says that he's a sophomore, I don't think it's necessarily unrealistic.
I think they should have changed the kids' ages anyway, though...for a variety of reasons. Yes, the kids were very young in La Cage Aux Folles. But this remake clearly didn't use every detail from the original film. If they can make the butler Guatemalan instead of black, they can make the kids a bit older. Especially if they were going to cast a 27-year-old as a 20-year-old, and a 31-year-old as a 17-year-old!
Besides, 17 is absurdly young to be engaged. It happens, but usually not with such upscale families. (What U.S. Senator is going to think it would be good PR for his 17-year-old daughter to get married?) Anyway, both sets of parents should have objected to the marriage, because of the age issue alone.
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malika585
14 years ago
Making the ages of the kids younger makes more sense because what Val and Barbabra were trying to do was a bit foolish and done out of fear that they would not be able to marry if her parents did not agree. Obviously if she was 18 or older they would not have needed parental consent.
Val's attitude toward Albert can also be explained because of his age. He's young and did not really step back and think beyond his own situation and objective of getting married to a young girl from a high profile conventional family. If Val was older one would hope he would have had the emotional maturity to understand how his actions would affect his parents- especially Albert who was being used and discarded as they pleased.
To me, Val did seem level headed at times but as someone else on the post mentioned, the pretense of a "regular" family could not have lasted long and plenty could have gone wrong before and after the wedding. So obviously he is also a bit childish and immature in his thinking... which the script can attribute to his age.
Additionally, one can also attribute the insistence on marriage to their "young ages". They had a sense of urgency to be married even though they obviously could have waited until they were both was older, financially independent and not have to put on any pretenses.
for the original imdb layout:
http://www.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?redesignolddesign
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