The Peanut Butter Solution (1985) – Review

Meriam Webster’s Dictionary defines non sequitur as “an inference that does not follow from the premises” which, funnily enough, could also sum up the premise for director Michael Rubbo’s film The Peanut Butter Solution, a film that constantly has the viewer wondering what the hell is going on. Now, I’ve seen some pretty weird kid’s films in my day, including such classics as The Dark Crystal and Return to Oz, yet this film about ghosts, out-of-control hair, magical paintings, and peanut butter really takes the cake; those other films may contain some creepy and bizarre imagery, and some very weird happenings, but The Peanut Butter Solution may have you questioning the sanity of all those involved.

The plot of The Peanut Butter Solution — and I’m being very loose with the word “plot,” here — deals with an 11-year-old boy named Michael Baskin (Mathew Mackay), who is coming to grips with the fact that his sister Suzie (Alison Darcy) is now running the household while their mother (Anna Vitre) has gone off to Australia to deal with the death of her father, and their struggling artist father (Michael Hogan) is too busy in the attic trying to get some paintings done for a new show to worry about anything else. When Michael’s best friend Connie (Siluck Saysanasy) mentions an abandoned mansion that burned down the night before, our young hero is eager to check it out, which leads to him encountering something so horrifying — which later would be labelled “The Fright” — that it results in him waking up the next day completely bald.

Could this be how Lex Luthor got his start?

It turns out that a homeless couple, Mary (Helen Hughes) and Tom (Griffith Brewer), had died in a house fire, a pair who Michael had previously been kind to before they’d shuffled off this mortal coil, and, feeling guilty about scaring this nice kid bald, the two ghosts show up at his house, in the middle of the night, with the recipe to a magical formula for hair growth, the main ingredient, of course, being peanut butter. As in many of Grimm’s fairy tales, such magical assistance comes with strict rules where deviations from them can result in tragedy, and so, of course, Michael uses too much peanut butter and he quickly has to deal with the consequences.

From bald to having a train of hair with one easy oops.

As if a kid with hair that would make Rapunzel jealous wasn’t weird enough for you, the film also has an insanely bizarre villain, in the form of Michael’s public school art teacher (Michel Maillot), known simply as The Signor. This complete psychopath of an art teacher berates and even tears up the artwork of his students if they so much as even think of using their imagination, ranting at poor Michael, “I’ve told you a thousand times, no imagination, only what you see!” What kind of school would hire such a person to teach art, you ask? Well, later Signor is called to the Principal’s office, where she informs him that she’s had her doubts about him and she’s done some checking; “I found out that you’ve been kicked out of two schools, that you’ve faked famous paintings, and that you’ve changed your name and appearance four times. AND you claim to be Rembrandt’s great-great-great-great grandson.” She rightfully fires Signor, but we’re left wondering how in the hell did he get that job in the first place.

Was there a job notice for “Crazed and Criminal Art Teacher Wanted” posted somewhere?

This is when things get even worse for poor Michael. Not only is he expelled from school for being a distraction — his hair having to be constantly clipped during class is found to be rather annoying — but he is quickly kidnapped by Signor who, having learned of Michael’s amazing hair, decides that he could use this magical hair to create magical paintbrushes, that he could, in turn, sell to local art suppliers. If that bizarre twist wasn’t enough to get you scratching your head in wonderment, well we also get Suzie and Connie going all Nancy Drew to discover what happened to Michael and twenty other children who have gone missing. You see, Signor has set up a sweatshop staffed with kidnapped children, who bemoan the fact that “We have to make 500 brushes a day, or we don’t eat!” Connie eventually locates the hidden magical paintbrush factory/sweatshop, having hidden inside Signor’s van during one of his deliveries, but he is quickly captured, and while there, he learns from the other kids that the paintbrushes are so powerful that they paint whatever their user imagines, without need for detail or neatness, and that you can even enter the paintings themselves.

At this point, the film has either won you over or has broken your brain.

Learning that the idea for The Peanut Butter Solution stemmed from bedtime stories that writer/director Michael Rubbo told his son was the least surprising thing about this whole enterprise, as the movie does seem like some bizarre stream of consciousness, where someone is clearly making up shit as he goes along. The whole film is structured like a waking nightmare, with events unfolding with seemingly no rhyme or reason, and if there was a moral to this story, it’s more than a little muddled. Aside from providing common-sense advice about taking medical assistance from ghosts or that school hiring practices need to be quite a bit more thorough, it doesn’t really have a clear message for kids.

Stay in school kids, or this could happen to you.

The Peanut Butter Solution is clearly not your average kid’s flick, bouncing from one bizarre moment to the next at the drop of a hat, but the film does have a lot of heart and I think most young viewers will get a kick out of the misadventures of Michael and his friends. The Peanut Butter Solution may have been made in the 80s, but by its very “out there” nature, it doesn’t really date itself, and it also includes two songs from the then 17-year-old Céline Dion, which ended up being the first English-language songs she ever performed, so for that alone, some people may find this film worth checking out.