This movie has made history recently as one lowest grossing movie in history. Apparently, the distribution company decided to release it on dvd and pay-per-view at the same time as in the theaters and it made around $100/theater. Anyway, I thought I'd give it a watch to see if it was that bad or if it was just that the ad budget was that close to zero. So how was it? It was okay. Not great, but not the worst either.
The story: Eliza Walsh (played by Uma Thurman) is a stressed out mother-of-two. We follow her on the day of her oldest daughter's sixth birthday as she tries to get everything together for the party, running herself ragged and frustrated. To make matters worse, she has an oportunity to enter a contest by writing a 500 word essay on motherhood that could land her a job, but it is due that night and she struggles to find the time and focus for a winning essay that will give her a paying job as a writer.
That synopsis should give a good idea of what the movie does well and where it falters. There are elements of the movie that are very honest and very relatable. What parent hasn't felt the stress of a child's birthday party or a holiday event? What parent hasn't felt the exhaustion of running around, doing errand after errand, getting more and more frustrated as things go wrong until you just want to scream? In that the movie has a lot of scenes that are very grounded, very relatable, very real.
What the movie doesn't do well is focus. Eliza is stressed about her kid's birthday party, but she still has time to go shopping for herself. She is struggling to write the essay, but she has time to dance around with the delivery man. I was over an hour into the movie and still wasn't sure what it was trying to say. It's like it wanted to deal with everything -- the relationship of husband and wife, how the responsibilities of being a mom run you ragged, the frustrations of life in New York, the woman who moved away from writing and wants to get back to it...it's all there in the giant jumble. An hour into the movie, Eliza has her husband read her essay and he asks her "What are you trying to say?" That was the exact question I had for the movie too.
Compare that to WHEN HARRY MET SALLY which very directly asks the question "Can men and women be friends or does the sex always get in the way?" (And the answer is no, funny how people forget that. They had sex, remember? Bow chika bow-bow.) Or CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN where a man is struggling to balance a demanding dream job with the responsibilities of a a houshold with twelve children.
Even at the end, I'm not sure what MOTHERHOOD was trying to say other than, yes, motherhood is a demending tazing job and it is made better by having a caring husband with a $24,000 check. (Not making that up.) It does feel like the writer is trying to say something, but I wish someone had sat her down and forced her to answer that question -- What are you trying to say -- and do another draft of the script to make sure she is saying it in as powerful way as possible.
SLIGHT RECOMMEND FOR MOMS (and those who empathize with them).
More highly recommended family movies: Cheaper by the Dozen (with Steve Martin), Parenthood (with Steve Martin), Father of the Bride (also with Steve Martin), Adventures in Babysitting (not with Steve Martin...probably a typo), Three Men and a Baby (I think Steve Martin is in a background somewhere, maybe a as waiter), and Mrs Doubtfire (which doesn't have Steve Martin...or does it? No, it doesn't.)
No comments:
Post a Comment