Man of the House

Ben Archer is an eleven-year-old boy whose life with his divorced mother, Sandy, has settled into a comfortable routine. When Sandy becomes serious about Jack Sturgess, a lawyer, Ben sees an intruder rather than a future stepfather, and he sets out to drive the man away. Sandy and Jack announce their wedding plans, and Jack, aware that the boy wants nothing to do with him, takes Ben along to a father-son Indian Guides camp, hoping the shared activities will wear down his resistance. Ben has other ideas about how the trip should go.

James Orr directed from a screenplay he wrote with Jim Cruickshank, following his earlier Mr. Destiny and well before Christmas in Wonderland. Jonathan Taylor Thomas plays Ben, Chevy Chase plays Jack, and Farrah Fawcett plays Sandy. The supporting cast includes George Wendt, David Shiner and Art LaFleur, part of a credited cast of twenty-five.

Walt Disney Pictures released the film on 3 March 1995, and it runs ninety-six minutes. It sits among the family comedies of that period, built around the friction between a wary child and an adult trying to fit into an established household. Reactions have been muted rather than enthusiastic: on IMDb it holds a rating of 5.3 from about eleven thousand votes, and on TMDB a rating of 5.4 from 198 votes. A critics' rating of 3.6 from fifteen reviews places professional notices below even those modest audience scores.