Big Daddy (1999 film)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Anvilicious: The courtroom climax gets a bit preachy.
  • Designated Villain: Arthur Brooks. He's just doing his job - and is completely justified in doing so - but in the context of the film, he comes off as somewhat mean.
  • Heartwarming Moments: The climactic courtroom scene, where Sonny and his dad reconcile and everybody calls their papa.
  • Moment of Awesome: Julian has a crippling phobia of strangers, so Sonny has the boy wear a pair of sunglasses that "turn him invisible" whenever he has to deal with a new person. At Sonny's trial, Julian at first has to wear the shades when he is called to the witness stand and questioned by Layla. However, he finally manages to gain so much confidence that he calmly reaches up and takes the shades off.
  • Never Live It Down: Sonny gleefully brings up that Corinne used to work at Hooters whenever he's around her, much to her chagrin. One of their friends pretty much makes her (and needlessly so) admit in court, during testimony, that she used to work there while she was attending medical school.

Corrine: [under her breath] Asshole...

  • Straw Man Has a Point:
    • Played straight with Arthur Brooks. The social services agent who brings suit against Sonny for fraudulence and kidnapping appears to be heartless when he drags a frightened, begging Julian out of Sonny's apartment. However, he sincerely has Julian's best interests at heart and was right to bring Sonny to trial. And when it appears that he is going to lose his case, instead of becoming bitter he is so moved by Sonny's testimony that he immediately takes out a cell phone and calls his own father (along with most of the rest of the cast).
    • Subverted with Vanessa. She is correct (at first) when complaining that Sonny is lazy, irresponsible, and doesn't want to grow up - a fact that Sonny himself is willing to admit by the movie's climax. However, she loses any audience sympathy after lying to Sonny and then having a secret affair with Sid. This leads to an argument and exchange of hostilities between the two in her apartment.
  • Tear Jerker: "I want Sonny to be my daddy!" Dear God.
    • And any sequence in the movie set to Sweet Child of Mine.
    • "I won't play the Kangaroo Song anymore."
  • Unfortunate Implications: Layla mentions that she heard one of the biggest influences on a child is who they hang out with, and then jokes that she hopes Julian isn't hanging around with drugheads at school. This and Julian's ashamed reaction lead Sonny to slyly question some of Julian's friends in the schoolyard and see if they're "smoking dope" or "drinking rum". They aren't. What makes it a case of this: Of all the kids in the school for Sonny to hound over smoking dope, what's the ethnicity of his victim?