Review of Motherhood (2009) by Nathaniel H — 30 Apr 2010
Interesting note about Katherine Dieckmann's movie: with less than seventy thousand grossed in the States and even less made elsewhere, this is one of the biggest flops in cinematic history. So what did everyone miss? Not much.
Motherhood is one of those self-indulgent "if only you knew what it was REALLY like!" projects that intentionally confuses motherhood with sainthood and makes the hassles of modern family life both more glorified and more taxing than they actually are.
It is so episodic (it takes place in the span of a single day) and so plotless that it renders the movie rudderless and at its worst, unbearably dull. It's a picture in which nothing really happens.
The writing leaves much to be desired with minor and major characters alike spouting off ridiculously dopey lines in the vain hope of being clever (they're not). Sadly some of the worst lines are assigned to Uma Thurman as the mother in question.
She's a writer, and a member of the "I went to grad school" literate, upper-scale New York City class which means that writer and director Dieckmann gets to indulge her worst instincts and make Uma recite some awfully pretentious and utterly annoying lines.
Uma is still a striking woman (something that almost none of the characters really seem to notice, absurdly) and she's not exactly bad here, but she's too forced and mannered to transcend this material.
This review of Motherhood (2009) was written by Nathaniel H on 30 Apr 2010.
Motherhood has generally received mixed reviews.
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