In the bonus track of the DVD of "Being Frank" (a.k.a., "You Can Choose Your Family"),there was a set of deleted scenes with one that was particularly revealing. In the deleted scene, Frank was reading about the philandering of President Bill Clinton and made a critical remark about the President's conduct. The film needed more of this kind of satirical content if it wanted to be a comedy with any backbone or indeed any humor.

The time is 1992, and Frank's family is gearing up for the Starling Festival, which brings back memories for the time when Frank was courting his life Laura. The film has overtones of a sit com as a potentially heartwarming family film with light comic overtones. The film could have easily moved in the direction of a Hallmark film. Unfortunately, "Being Frank" was at heart a disturbing drama of bigamy in which Frank leads two lives with two separate families.

Was this supposed to be a comedy about a man who could face jail time for his misconduct? The film's snappy dialogue was played with so much understatement that it rarely felt like a comedy. The character of the pothead named Uncle Ross, who impersonates Richie, the fictitious father of Frank's son Phillip, was really the only character who rang true as a comic figure.

There is a lengthy build-up to the declaration of truth of Frank to his two devoted and long-suffering wives, Laura and Bonnie. But the key character in enabling the father's despicable conduct was his young son Phillip. So, in addition to polygamy, Frank was inflicting emotional trauma on his teenage son.

What will Hollywood think of next as a subject for a film comedy? It would be difficult to stoop to any lower depth than the disgusting subject matter of this film.

In real life, this would be almost impossible to pull off, especially with two families in near proximity to each other, although I'll end this review with a personal insight. I like Jim Gaffigan as a stand-up comic but I've never seen his television series. I think he's incredibly funny, however this picture's attempt to make a terrible concept laughable sadly misses it's mark. Some fairly clever writing allows his character to rationalize the decision to marry two different women to son Philip (Logan Miller),but the effort is lost when it comes to the grand finale and Frank has to face up to the horror he created for separate families. I didn't particularly care for any of the characters here, and Uncle Ross (Alex Karpovsky) appeared to be the worst kind of caricature the film makers could have come up with for a bong addicted stoner recruited for the job of Frank's alter ego. And if one needs further proof that Hollywood enables and promotes a gay agenda, the tent scene with Eddie (Gage Banister) and Troy (Thomas Mulzac) pretty much confirms it.

But you know, strange things do happen. My wife's grandmother was married to a man in New York State, who raised a family with a son and four daughters. At a certain point, he called it quits and left the family unannounced and went to Canada. There he remarried with no divorce from the first wife, and raised another family in the same order, a boy and four girls. The families were raised about two decades apart, and eventually learned of each other's existence. By then everyone was mature, the cheating husband had passed on, and members of the family eventually got together with each other in Nova Scotia, without fireworks I might add. I always thought they should have gone on Jerry Springer.

I really enjoyed this clever comedy about Frank, and its deep dive down the rabbit hole of the life of a creative bigamist. The script and characters are hilarious, and I knew from the moment the plot and cast were revealed in the trailer that this was going to be a riproaring little gem. This is the directorial debut for Miranda, and it's great to see a female director and Skidmore alum step up and excel with such a bold film. Don't miss it!