Movie Review: Mother's Day - Fangirl Freakout

MOTHER’S DAY, directed by legendary filmmaker Garry Marshall, is the latest in his series of holiday themed movies… and hopefully it will be his last. This film is so incredibly awful, I didn’t think I was going to make it through ’til the end. The fact that it has a run time of 120 minutes quickly goes from laughable to downright sadistic. I am not ashamed to admit that I kinda enjoyed VALENTINE’S DAY. Hell, I can even slightly stomach NEW YEARS EVE… but MOTHER’S DAY is a beast of its own. I can excuse the fact that a great cast was wasted, but I cannot forgive the racist and sexist screenplay, the expositional dialogue (at one point in the movie a character literally says “I have abandonment issues”) and the fact that the movie wasn’t funny or sweet or sentimental in the slightest. The only emotion it made me feel was blind rage. Also, did anyone else notice the random cuts to geriatric extras? I could swear Marshall made this just so he could give his friends screen time in a major motion picture.

At one point in the movie, Garry Marshall makes reference to one of sister Penny Marshall’s films (that he also acted in), A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN, which happens to be one of my favorite movies of all time. I would usually love a little nod to a previous film like this… but in all honesty, in a movie as bad as MOTHER’S DAY, it just pissed me off even more. To think that a one-time great filmmaker like Garry Marshall has now reverted to making movies like this is inexcusable.

I could rage about this movie for days. Luckily for you (and my sanity), while I was trying not to run out of the theater screaming, I dreamed about the other pop culture hair styles that looked as similarly awful as Roberts’ wig. That at least brought some levity to the situation. Oh yeah, and did I mention this wig was something Julia personally wanted in the film? It was in her closet from one of her previous movies, another of my other favorites, NOTTING HILL! Whyyyyy must they ruin good things?!?! So without further ado, please quickly scroll past Julia and get to the good stuff.