Mother's Day

When it comes to films about dysfunctional domestic life, Garry Marshall is probably the king in directing these. His resume goes on forever, but since there is a lot of dysfunction in American family life, there certainly is great fodder which is rife with juicy material in which to write or direct about. Such a film is "Mother's Day", a heart-warming holiday that many--certainly in this film, can make problematic because of the countless issues at hand.

This story follows the lives of different mothers on Mother's Day. Sandy (Jennifer Aniston) is happily divorced, until she realizes that her ex-husband, Henry (Timothy Olyphant) eloped with a much younger woman, Tina (Shay Mitchell). Now she must learn to deal with big changes in her life as her two boys now have a stepmom. Sisters Jesse (Kate Hudson) and Gabi (Sarah Chalke) get an unexpected surprise from their mother, Flo (Margo Martindale) and father, Earl (Robert Pine), who is not happy to find out that Gabi is a lesbian and Jesse is married to a man of color, Russell (Aasif Mandvi). Miranda (Julia Roberts) doesn't have any kids and is focusing on her career. Kristin (Britt Robertson) is enjoying life as a new mother, but is feeling pressure from her boyfriend, Zack (Jack Whitehall) to get married. Bradley, (Jason Sudeikis) is trying hard to be the best parent for his two girls since their mom passed away the previous year, however the idea of Mother's Day is pretending it doesn't exist at all. All these characters become intertwined as the story develops.

Others to round out the cast are Ella Anderson as Vicky, Hector Elizondo as Lance Wallace, Miranda's agent, Grayson Russell as Tommy, Cameron Esposito as Max and Anoush NeVart as Sonia.

As I previously mentioned, this was directed by Garry Marshall-- king of the American family life. Since he is in incredibly familiar ground, he probably walked through the directing of this in his sleep. His resume says it all, ("The Flamingo Kid" '84, "Overboard" '87, "Pretty Woman" '90, "Dear God" '96, "Runaway Bride" '99, "The Princess Diaries" '01, "Georgia Rule" '07, "New Year's Eve" '11) plus tons of others and lots of TV. One thing I can say for Marshall is you know what to expect, which can be a blessing or a curse depending on the production. It was written by Tom Hines, Lily Hollander, Anya Kochoff and Matthew Walker. First of all, a script is typically better if there is no more than two screenwriters. Secondly, it would've been far more advantageous if the four writers here had more experience than they had. Only one, Hollander, has one other film other than this one to their credit, and it shows in the script. There was too much lack of cohesiveness and there was a good deal of choppiness in this where one was waiting for something to happen in a few of the scenes. Even though it was a comedy-drama, there were a few funny moments, however not enough to enjoy what was happening to these characters. The actors clearly did what they could do to try to save this, but because of the lack of a taught script, the story regressed to mediocrity. It wasn't a total wash, there were a few places that had you tear up and laugh within the same scene, but a good portion of it simply got bogged down in predictability with a formulaic storyline.

If you can appreciate the actors in this, you will probably have a fun time with this film, however if you're looking for a tight script with a hopeful storyline, you might decide to pass on this. At least if one has to see this, rent or Netflix it.

Out of 4 Stars: 2                                      Rated: PG-13                                 118mins.