Once Upon a Twilight!: Movie Review: Open Road Film's Mother's Day

Mother's Day

Release Date: April 29th 2016

Directed by: Garry Marshall

Story by: Lily Hollander, Matt Walker, Tom Hines, Garry Marshall

Screenplay by: Anya Kochoff Romano, Matt Walker, Tom Hines

Produced by: Mike Karz, Wayne Rice, Daniel Diamond, Brandt Andersen, Howard Burd, Mark DiSalle

Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Jason Sudeikis, Britt Robertson, Timothy Olyphant, Hector Elizondo, Jack Whitehall

MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for language and some suggestive material

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Hashtag: #MothersDayMovie

“Mother’s Day” is the latest star-studded ensemble comedy from director Garry Marshall (“Pretty Woman,” “Valentine’s Day”). Bringing together Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Julia Roberts along with Jason Sudeikis, it's a celebration of mothers everywhere. This big-hearted comedy invites us all to enjoy the laughter, tears and love as three generations come together in the week leading up to Mother’s Day.

The new Mother’s Day movie stands for the idea that Garry Marshall really does need to stop making his holiday movies. Boom. There it is. I know. I usually try to soften the blow when I don’t care for a film. I try to tell you what worked. I didn’t think that anything worked about Mother’s Day, and I don’t want any of you to take your moms to see it.

The formula of piecing together mini-stories is tired. Some of the vignettes worked better than others. The Julia Roberts vignette was entirely depressing. The Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis vignettes were sort of a bummer, too. The Kate Hudson story was somewhat cute, but also racially offensive. The Britt Robertson story seemed the most sincere out of the bunch. As a whole, the mini-stories played like re-run sitcoms. They were funny or cute the first time I saw them. Now, I’m just trying to smile at the old punchlines. There were even some forced references to Pretty Woman. Those were obvious, awkward and landed more like pandering than anything else. Yes, I loved Pretty Woman. This isn’t that.

The whole thing felt uninspired. All the clichés were there. The younger wife isn’t very bright. The older couple is close-minded (read that racist) and from Texas. The ex-wife is bitter. The career woman is cold. This is 2016. We should have come further than the same, tired, clichés. Women deserve better. Moms deserve a better comedy. A film aimed at moms and the people who love them, needs to be better.

So, happy early Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this. Happy early Mother's Day to all the people who love moms enough to read a review about a Mother’s Day film. Wait for it to be on video if you’re curious to see this one. Like the silk corsage I gave my mom to celebrate her one year, this film is fake, cheap and been done before. I didn’t know better then. If you still want to see Mother’s Day, it opens on April 29.