Directed by: Garry Marshall
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Sarah Chalke, Margo Martindale, Jason Sudeikis, Timothy Olymphant, Shay Mitchell, Britt Robertson, Jack Whitehall, Aasif Mandvi, Carmen Esposito, Hector Elizondo
It may take me as long to list the names of the actors in Mother's Day as it will to write the actual review. This is the last film of the late Garry Marshall, who in his uneven directorial career made gems like The Flamingo Kid, Nothing in Common, and Pretty Woman. In the non-gems category is Exit to Eden, Raising Helen, New Year's Eve, Princess Diaries, and now this movie. Marshall's final three films were odes to quasi-national holidays (Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve, and now Mother's Day). Valentine's Day was pretty good. New Year's Eve was rather blah. Mother's Day is the worst of them. I cannot confirm whether Marshall was eyeing up a movie about Arbor Day or Columbus Day.
Mother's Day (like the previous two holiday films) consists of a large cast and whip-around coverage of numerous subplots, all of which turn out okay in the end. It doesn't much matter how many subplots there are. They all seem extraneous. There are good actors in Mother's Day saddled with a really dumb script. One subplot involves a mother and father who travel from Texas to Atlanta via RV and discover their two estranged daughters' long hidden secrets. One sister is married to another woman. Another is married to an Indian. Gasp! The fallout from this leads to dopey racist, sitcom humor. Maybe the movie is using the excuse that the parents are supposed to be like Archie Bunker and the joke is on them. It doesn't feel that way.
There is so much more. I will describe briefly. Jennifer Aniston's Sandy is stunned to learn her ex-husband (for whom she still carries a torch) has married a younger, bodacious woman (Mitchell) who truly fills out a bikini well. Her children actually like their stepmother, which will not do. You already know about the sisters. Another guy named Bradley (Sudeikis) lost his wife in combat last year and still has not found a way to move on. He will eventually hook up with another of the characters in very contrived, inevitable fashion. Then, there is a young woman (Robertson) with a young child and a stand-up comic boyfriend (Whitehall) who wants to marry her. She refuses, mostly because she was given up for adoption and has attachment issues. Then, we have a millionaire QVC personality/businesswoman named Miranda (Roberts) wearing a Moe/Pete Rose wig and flashes a million dollar smile while hawking her products. She has a connection to one of the above subplots which doesn't take long to figure out.
The characters all find a way to intersect their lives, including Sandy who apparently runs an interior decorating business but is never seen doing any actual work. She interviews with Miranda to do some decorating, shows up late, has a meltdown, and gets the job anyway. Only in this world does that happen. Without even working a single day for Miranda, she upgrades her car from a crappy minivan to a new white Cadillac Escalade. How? Did Miranda give Sandy an advance? She was hired on Friday and had the new car in her driveway in time for a Saturday party, with personalized license plates to boot. Just in time for her ex-husband to be impressed/shocked.
The actors are likable and deserve better. Especially Margo Martindale and Robert Pine as the parents who are racist Southern caricatures. In the course of a few hours, they will be able to reverse a lifetime of prejudice and fear and accept their new son and daughter in-law (and their child Tanner, which produces lame racist jokes as well). Mother's Day is meant a light comedy requiring little thought or analysis, but it is nearly impossible to do that. The problems with this movie are so glaring they can't be ignored. There are a lot of moving parts that add up to nothing special. The payoffs evolve predictably, which is fine if the execution is there. The movie just limps along until it's over. But it sure takes forever to get there.
No comments:
Post a Comment