Film

Just Add Water

Name: Just Add Water
Genre: Family, Comedy
Released: 1998
Cast: Laraine Newman, Liz Sheridan, D. C. Douglas, Richard Livingston, Mario Yedidia

Comedy
Magical realism
Light-hearted

A 16-minute family comedy where Nanna returns from the dead during her own ashes ceremony to meddle in her descendants' lives. It's a scrappy, good-natured short with the premise of a sitcom squeezed into a single afternoon. Exactly the kind of thing that plays well at festivals and family gatherings—warm, silly, and over before it wears out its welcome.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy a short, deadpan family comedy where the absurd premise is played straight and the small domestic squabbles carry more weight than the gimmick.

Skip it if you want a film with plot momentum or a fully formed world; at sixteen minutes it sketches its characters quickly and leaves little room for the jokes to build.

What it asks of you: Very little: it runs about sixteen minutes, moves at a brisk, offhand pace, and asks you to meet its eccentric relatives without any setup.

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