Blu-Ray Review: Mother’s Day

In 2010, Garry Marshall released the ensemble romantic comedy Valentine’s Day, which despite relatively negative reviews, went on to do considerably well at the box office. Apparently not one to be concerned about the critic’s pans, Marshall decided to double down and make another holiday themed film, New Year’s Eve, the following year. That film was less well received than its predecessor, and did not have the luxury of a decent box office. Going back to the holiday well for a third time, Marshall’s Mother’s Day was released earlier this year. Unfortunately, third time was not the charm. Mother’s Day is an abysmal movie.

The film follows the lives of a few different families leading up to Mother’s Day weekend. Jennifer Aniston plays a divorced mother of two dealing with the new marriage of her ex-husband (Timothy Olyphant), Kate Hudson and Sarah Chalke are sisters reluctant to tell their mother about each of their recent live style changes, Britt Robinson plays a young mom reluctant to marry her baby’s daddy (Zack Whitehall), and Jason Sedakis plays a widower dad still coping with the loss of his veteran wife a year earlier.

There are numerous elements working against this film, the most glaring is the writing. The dialogue, in particular, is pretty terrible. There are three writers credited, Tom Hines, Anya Kochoff Romano, and Matt Walker. This is Hines’ and Walker’s first and only writing credit, with  Kochoff’s only other writing job being the awful Monster-in-Law, so it’s really no surprise that the script comes off as amateur as it does. Within each scene, there is maybe one or two lines of dialogue that feels real and honest, but nearly everything else spoken feels forced and insincere.

The amount of poorly executed exposition delivered in dialogue is pretty astounding. In one scene, Sedakis is watching a video of his late wife singing karaoke to him that she had apparently sent while she was deployed in the Middle East some time ago. His daughter enters the room and states “”Mom loved karaoke, remember?” Let’s break that down a bit. First, as he is actively watching a video of his wife singing karaoke, there is no need to “remember” her love of it, as it is not necessary to remember something that is actively playing out in front of you. Second, I would hope that a husband would have not forgotten something his deceased wife loved to do only a year after her death. This is not only unnecessary exposition, but terribly written. Something along the lines of “You would think that someone that liked karaoke so much would have gotten better at it,” would have played out a bit better, though still would have been unnecessary. At one point in the film, Jennifer Aniston actually talks to herself to force feed the audience exposition.

The scenarios in which these characters find themselves have some basis in real life (divorce, death, racism, homophobia), but are viewed through a sitcom prism. I feel the writers were trying to one up each other by seeing who could write the most contrived scene possible. (FYI- they all won). There is a scene toward the end of a film in which a serious and complicated family matter is resolved by a trailer “comically” losing it’s breaks and veering out of control. It’s actually embarrassing to watch. Even Jason Sedakis, who despite his talents, managed to land in his share of bad sketches during his time on SNL, but has never done anything as remotely embarrassing as the karaoke scene toward the end of the film.

There are sparks of a good film here, thanks primarily to the cast. Sedakis could have had a really nice turn here had he been given something better to work with. Jennifer Aniston plays her the role of the frustrated divorcee very convincingly, but the script is working against her (And how has someone so likable as Kate Hudson been in so many bad films? Seriously. Take a look at her Rotten Tomato Scores). I don’t blame any of the actors for taking the roles. Julia Roberts was obviously doing a favor for Marshall, who is principally responsible for launching her career, and everyone else was likely just happy for the chance to work with him. There are also a few genuine laughs, although they are incredibly scarce. The beginning of the film has an amusing reference to League of Their Own, which Marshall’s wiser Penny directed, and in which Marshall appeared, and the closing credits has an outtake of a pretty funny ad-libbed line by Roberts.

At the one hour mark of Mother’s Day I realized that I actually detested the film. I find myself as of late basing my like for a film on whether or not I would like to spend more time with the characters once the film has ended. Before the credits rolled, I was praying each of the characters in Mother’s Day would perish in a blazing inferno. If this was the late Gerry Marshall’s gift to mothers, it’s very apparent that he hated mothers. I admit that I am not the target demographic for this film, but I can’t fathom for the life of me who is. Garry Marshall had an incredible career, and it’s unfortunate that this would be his final project.

BLU-RAY EXTRAS

Deleted scenes: there is a small handful of completely useless scenes (hence the deletion), though as pointless as they are, they are not nearly as offensive as the rest of the film.

Gag reel: there are some genuinely funny and talented people in this film, so there are some almost moderately entertaining outtakes, but for some reason Gerry Marshall felt the need to introduce each of them, as if we have never heard of an outtake or gag reel before. It also unfortunately includes about ten minutes of the cast and crew saying “Happy Mother’s Day” to the camera.