Eliza Kendall Welch is the mother of, Clara and Lucas. She lives with her husband Avery McKendrik in a Manhattan apartment. Today is May 25th and it is Clara's 6th birthday. Eliza has has to make arrangements for a party and also attend to day-to-day chores. This includes Blogging and entering an online contest ‘Motherhood’. Plus, looking after her invalid elderly neighbor and a dog. Things will slowly get out of hand after her car gets towed because of a film shooting. The tire on her bike gets punctured and she alienates herself from her friend, Sheila. Clara’s name is misspelled on her cake? Avery refuses to answer his cell-phone. After being assisted by a delivery man named Nikesh plus he finds her attractive, she decides she has had enough and she is not going home?
This movie is about the details of what a mother of two has to do in a day. Housework, organizing her daughter's birthday party, shopping and writing. The events seem ordinary but it successfully highlights the stress of being a mother and a housewife. It's a job that has no off office hours, no breaks and no days off. The demands and difficulties of their roles are often underestimated and under appreciated. It reminds us that people need encouragement and acknowledgment to survive a mundane routine. It also reminds us not to take love or family for granted.
This film is not as bad as the ratings suggest. It's about a frustrated mother who's trying to continue her career as a writer. She scoffs at the mother on the playground who encourages her daughter to behave nicely. She leaves dog poop on the ground without picking it up. She doesn't buckle her son in his carseat. She writes about a friend's personal moment on her blog using real names. She causes a traffic jam by leaving her car in the middle of the road. Then she sulks over her car getting towed and this is entirely her fault? There's something in this mess!! Uma Thurman delivers a good performance but the voice over at the end isn't as poignant as it should be. It also wants to be Bad Moms to a certain degree but that movie hadn't been made yet, so it couldn't be used to illuminate the path for writer/director Katherine Dieckmann.
This Uma Thurman drama offers a fairly unvarnished look at parenthood and it will appeal much more to moms and dads. They will be able to relate to the subject matter easier than to their kids. Teens who do opt in will find some humor in the movie's honesty about the challenges and hassles of having children. But younger kids may be put off by that same frankness. The main characters clearly love their families even if they do sometimes yell at each other, swear and make other mistakes. 3* (This movie is OK)
90 min, Comedy directed and written by Katherine Dieckmann with Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards, Minnie Driver, David and Matthew Schallipp, Daisy Tahan, Alice Drummond, Stephanie Szostak, Celina Vignaud, Dale Soules.
Note: Imdb 4.6* out of 10* with 4,392 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 20% with 51 critic reviews 16% with 2,500+ audience scores, Letterboxd 2.3* out of 5*, Roger Ebert 2*, Metacritic 34 out of 100 with 15 critic reviews 7.3 out of 10 with 14 user scores, Commonsense Media S. Jhoana Robledo 3* out of 5*, age 15+, 1* positive role models, violence, drinking, drugs & smoking, 3* positive messages, language, sex.
Special Note: This film grossed $100,000 in the USA in 2009 and in its UK opening weekend took a total of £88 equating to about 11 tickets sold? Allegedly making this the lowest grossing film ever released in the UK.
Mistakes: At around 1hr 22 minutes when Clara is telling Eliza that it's raining outside, she replies with "all right" but she is not saying the words? Eliza refers to Pylon as "The Pylons".
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