Movie : Mother’s Day
Genre :Romantic comedy
Director :Garry Marshall
Cast :Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis
It’s not possible for everyone to have entirely happy relationships with their mothers. Things get complicated as people grow up, and it is especially true for daughters.
In fact, it’s usually sons who have problematic equations with their fathers. This is something I have realised seeing other people, and of course, watching movies. Sometimes, the relationship is beyond repair, to the extent where they almost hate each other. If there is a reader who wants to play a sadistic prank on his/her mother, this film may be the gift you are looking for.
Mother’s Day — what an imaginative title! — is a film about maternal complications, both the mother’s and daughter’s side of it, conceived in the spirit of a lousy, annoying rom-com. Most astounding is its audacity — of the filmmakers and actors — to keep a straight face through the entire two-hour duration of the film, without becoming aware of the giant cringe fest they are producing.
The story follows three generations of women with different degrees of maternal problems. Sandy (Jennifer Aniston) is jealous of her ex-husband’s young, new attractive girlfriend, who the kids also seem to take an instant liking for. To be fair to the kids, they haven’t shown any sign of losing interest in their own mother. But that doesn’t stop Sandy from going mad, resulting in public embarrassments that were intended to be funny.
There is also Jesse (Kate Hudson) who has spoilt her relationship with her mum because she married an Indian guy, who in turn has a rather offensively loud, gaudily made-up Indian mother. Then there is also Miranda (Julia Roberts), a TV celeb who sells gemstone necklaces that change colours with your mood, who abandoned her daughter. In the midst of all this, there’s Bradley (Jason Sudeikis), who is trying to be a mother to his two daughters. They are all interconnected, we learn as Mother’s Day gradually approaches. What happens in the rest of the movie would rather not be discussed in the best interest of the readers.
It’s one thing to have protagonists with low IQ and make something funny, humane or entertaining out of it. It is another to show stupid people doing stupid things. Mother’s Day , which belongs to the latter section of films, shouldn’t have existed, just like the stupid, commercially manufactured annual event it derives its name from.
(Courtesy: The Hindu Cinema Plus)