“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

Problem Child
Comedy · Family · 1990
Ben Healy and his social climbing wife Flo adopt fun-loving seven year old Junior. But they soon discover he's a little monster as he turns a camping trip, a birthday party and even a baseball game into comic nightmares.
Problem Child
“Attila the Hun. Ivan the Terrible. Al Capone. They were all seven once.”
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
5.5 / 10
35.3K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
3 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
27 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.2 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Ben Healy and his social climbing wife Flo adopt fun-loving seven year old Junior. But they soon discover he's a little monster as he turns a camping trip, a birthday party and even a baseball game into comic nightmares.
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Problem Child?
The Popcorn Loyalist
“Big screen, big feelings, no apologies.”
Read their caseThe Big-Idea Head
“You watch with your brain, not your gut.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
Watch in your region.
Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.
Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Dennis Dugan
Written by
Larry Karaszewski · Scott Alexander
Put Problem Child on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.






