Two similarly-themed movies with the title Mother's Day were racing to theaters at the same
time, in hopes of capitalizing on the holiday for dear ol' Mom. The first and starriest
was last week's awful
and casually racist film by Garry Marshall, the third and hopefully final
entry in his unholy series. The other, which features recognizable but less bankable
stars, was forced into the bland title of Mothers
and Daughters, and also tells multiple interconnected stories about the
joys and pains of motherhood. While it's certainly the classier of the
two films, it's also so dry and forgettable that you'll be begging for anyone
to say something offensive.
It's like somebody has some kind of
personal vendetta against Moms with all the crappy movies being made about them.
Directed by Paul Duddridge and Nigel Levy, Mothers and Daughters could have
been plucked from the Lifetime Movie "rejection" pile. Each story is
either wildly heavy-handed in its message, unbearably clichéd, or woefully
unsatisfying. The cast is a collection of talented actresses you wish
were in something much better. Selma Blair gets the centerpiece role as Rigby,
a hip Manhattan photographer on the verge of a big career break shooting a
famous rock star (Agents of SHIELD's Luke Mitchell), until she discovers
she's pregnant. D'oh! Decisions decisions! Does she have the baby, or get an
abortion? Or does she enter into an awkward romance with her hot married doctor
(Quinton Aaron), who seems to have no problem flirting with his patients?
Other stories are little more than
extended vignettes, and as such don't go far beyond needs of the plot. Sharon
Stone plays Nina, a titan of the fashion industry, who can't stand how her
talented daughter Nina (Alexandra Daniels) is wasting her life as a waitress.
Courteney Cox is Beth, who is forced to reveal a bombshell of a family secret
to Becca (Christina Ricci) that threatens to destroy all of their lives; Mira
Sorvino is Georgina, who has a new line of “haute couture" bras ready
to launch, a supermodel boyfriend, and a secret connection to another character
in the film. It's not hard to figure out who it is, honestly. Nothing is very
complicated here. You'll spend most of the time wondering how there can be such
an incredible lack of diversity in a multi-tiered film like this with such an
expansive cast.
While most of these brief little stories
hold little emotional depth, another shows the potential of what the film could
have been. Susan Sarandon (who was just in the far superior maternal comedy The
Meddler) and her real-life daughter Eva Amurri Martino bring real dramatic
weight to the complicated relationship between a mother who is trying to get back
in the life of her estranged daughter Gale who split when the family rejected
her ambitious boyfriend. In one brilliant, contentious interaction (with
Sarandon on FaceTime or something) everything the film has to say about the
mother/daughter bond is captured, as Gale pleads for her mother's support while
pushing her away at the same time. Who knows if Sarandon and Amurri were
channeling some of their own past grievances but the authenticity of that brief
squabble is the realest thing Mothers
and Daughters has to
offer.
Rating: 2 out of 5
