by Frank Calvillo
For all of the films he’s churned out during his long and storied career, my all-time favorite Garry Marshall film remains Dear God, the director’s 1996 effort in which a con artist is forced to get a job at the city post office as part of a court-ordered community service. While there, he discovers that there a number of letters addressed to God asking for help with their various life struggles. Surprisingly touched, he starts to actually fulfill these wishes on behalf of the big guy upstairs. It was such a simplistic and beautiful Capra-esque tale that offered up a comment on humanity with plenty of humor throughout. I’m not sure if there’s anybody who will cite Marshall’s latest effort, Mother’s Day, as THEIR personal favorite, but if there is, I sure don’t want to meet them.
Not as busy or populated as Marshall’s previous two films, Mother’s Day nonetheless boasts an all-star ensemble cast in a loosely connected multi-strand narrative. It’s the week of Mother’s Day and divorced mom of two Sandy (Jennifer Aniston) is struggling to cope with her ex-husband’s (Timothy Olyphant) new marriage to a bouncy 20-something (Shay Mitchell), while Jesse (Kate Hudson) hasn’t spoken to her conservative mom Flo (Margo Martindale) since marrying the Indian-born Russell (Aasif Mandvi). At the same time, recent widower Bradley (Jason Sudeikis) is still reeling from the death of his wife the year before and may not even celebrate the holiday with his two daughters. At the same time, new mom Kristin (Britt Robertson) cannot commit to marriage until she makes peace with the past and contact with her birth mother, a successful home shopping TV guru named Miranda (Julia Roberts).
Following 2010’s Valentine’s Day, (which was more of an assortment of greeting cards strung together, rather than an actual script) and 2011’s New Year’s Eve (slightly more elevated thanks to the honestly touching Michelle Pfeiffer/Zac Efron sub-plot), Mother’s Day represents the worst of this unofficial trilogy. There is not an ounce of substance to be had in the entire affair. Every person in this film seems to live such a charmed life in one way or another, that even the ordinarily real-life problems come across as minor hurdles that are easily solved. The pacing is all over the place, forcing the audience to switch back and forth between storylines at lightning fast speeds, and expecting everyone to care about the cardboard cutouts in front of them.
Worse, though, is the humor throughout Mother’s Day, most of which belongs in a bygone era. Nearly every joke fails and comes off as an imitation of a joke whereby the audience instinctively chuckles simply because they recognize what’s being said was meant to be funny, rather than it organically getting a genuine laugh from anyone. Other times, the comedy is simply too over the top with the strongest example being the Hudson/Martindale storyline, which features so much racist and homophobic dialogue, it’s downright shocking. It’s unbelievable how anyone, from the writer, to the actors, to the director, to the freaking ratings committee could have thought that Martindale calling her son-in-law one of the most offensive slurs in regards to that specific culture, would be seen as funny.
In spite of how the end products turned out, it’s hard to dismiss the idea behind Marshall’s holiday-themed films. I love the notion about showing the differing viewpoints of holidays and how they impact us all. Everyone has a New Year’s Eve. Everyone has a mother that, for better or worse, they think of on Mother’s Day. Showing that everyone’s holiday experiences are different is showing how everyone’s life experiences are different. Yes, the screenplays to these films are chock full of tired old jokes (I still cannot believe one of the masterminds behind the glory of The Dick Van Dyke Show would try to excuse some of the material in Mother’s Day as comedy), the most cut and paste editing, and the sloppiest of looping. But there’s something about Marshall wanting to showcase those universal elements which link all of society, regardless of any kind of walk of life.
Mother’s Day is the kind of case where the performances can pretty much only be as good as the film itself and that’s more or less the case here. Those pushed to the sidelines in minor/supporting roles are lucky, save for Martindale, whose racist mother is simply too much. Of the top billed stars, Hudson and Sudeikis do their usual dependable comedic work. Aniston manages to rise above the material slightly in her role of a harried mom feeling past her days of usefulness. Her meltdown in a grocery store parking lot is one of the film’s rare highlights. The biggest casualty of the film, however, is Roberts. Sporting an ill-fitting wig and a questionable speech pattern, the actress gives what may be the worst performance of her career. I kept thinking about exactly why this was so. Rom-coms aside, Roberts has certainly proven herself to be an actress worthy of critical praise and acclaim. But her character in Mother’s Day is so awkwardly written it’s almost as if the actress had no choice BUT to play it lousy.
All complaints aside, we are so quick to forget that Marshall is the man who has made so many films full of heart and old-fashioned laughs. He brought us one of the ultimate tales of friendship with Beaches, the most endearing of modern-day Cinderella stories with Pretty Woman, gave Jackie Gleason a great cinematic swan song with Nothing in Common and introduced the world to Anne Hathaway with The Princess Diaries. Certainly a man who has given audiences such beloved films (and the actors starring in them some of their most trademark roles) has earned the right at this stage in his career to indulge in any kind of movie he wants to. These movies are trite and induce nothing but eye rolls as far as I’m concerned. But they give Marshall pleasure and satisfy his appetite as a filmmaker. So I say, let him have them. He’s earned it.
