This movie is a great example of why a guy who's gone through a bitter divorce should not try to make a Fatal Attraction-style erotic thriller. I don't know if it was the writers, the director or some studio executive, but I know that somebody vital to this production was really ticked off at his ex-wife. It's the only possible explanation for this misfire.
Robert (Peter Gallagher) is a successful architect with a girlfriend (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) and three sons. He also has a wife who left him three years ago and is only now returning because Robert has finally started divorce proceedings. Why he waited three years to do that is a whole 'nother story that isn't even touched on in this film. Judith (Jaime Lee Curtis) is fairly intense and everyone, including her own mother (Vanessa Redgrave), acts like there's something wrong with her. However, for the first 45 minutes of Mother's Boys, Judith more or less behaves like a normal woman who made a terrible mistake and wants her family back.
After that first 45 minutes, Judith goes from 0 to crazy in less than 45 seconds and the rest of the story is about how she tries to turn her favorite son Kess (Luke Edwards) against Robert and his new girlfriend as part of a Rube Goldberg-esque plan to kill the girlfriend. The problem is that after that first 45 minutes, the movie could have revealed that Robert was crazy, his girlfriend was crazy, his sons were crazy or Judith's mother was crazy and it would have made as much sense as what actually happened.
Mother's Boys automatically assumes the audience is going to identify Judith as the bad guy and sympathize with Robert and his hot girlfriend, so it does nothing in its first 45 minutes to establish or validate that dynamic. Characters react negatively to Judith without any justification for those reactions presented to the viewer. And while she does go eventually crazy and retroactively prove those reactions accurate, it feels arbitrary and forced. Only if you're inherently biased against the mother in divorce proceedings will you connect with the outlook in this film.
Now, there's a bunch of other garden variety dumb stuff here, like Robert letting Kess spend the weekend with Judith AFTER she fakes a violent attack on herself and blames Robert's girlfriend. Judith takes a broken piece of glass and cuts her own face, yet Robert has almost no hesitation in sending his son to be with such a psycho. And Robert's the one we're supposed to be rooting for? There's also the fact that both Robert and Judith apparently thought it was okay for their very young children to play around with real handcuffs. Who lets kids play with real handcuffs?
Fundamentally, though, it's the prejudice against the wife/mother character than dominates this movie and warps it into something silly and superficial. This could have made a good story but only if it was told by somebody that wasn't already angry at his ex-wife.
There is some female nudity here, but mostly from an obvious body double with only a nip slip from the sensual Jamie Lee Curtis. An oddly oblique incest reference also crops up.
Mother's Boys might have some use as a Rorschach Test for women dating a recently divorced guy. If he thinks this is a great film, he's probably still got a lot of rage to work out. As general purpose entertainment, it's a failure.
Robert (Peter Gallagher) is a successful architect with a girlfriend (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) and three sons. He also has a wife who left him three years ago and is only now returning because Robert has finally started divorce proceedings. Why he waited three years to do that is a whole 'nother story that isn't even touched on in this film. Judith (Jaime Lee Curtis) is fairly intense and everyone, including her own mother (Vanessa Redgrave), acts like there's something wrong with her. However, for the first 45 minutes of Mother's Boys, Judith more or less behaves like a normal woman who made a terrible mistake and wants her family back.
After that first 45 minutes, Judith goes from 0 to crazy in less than 45 seconds and the rest of the story is about how she tries to turn her favorite son Kess (Luke Edwards) against Robert and his new girlfriend as part of a Rube Goldberg-esque plan to kill the girlfriend. The problem is that after that first 45 minutes, the movie could have revealed that Robert was crazy, his girlfriend was crazy, his sons were crazy or Judith's mother was crazy and it would have made as much sense as what actually happened.
Mother's Boys automatically assumes the audience is going to identify Judith as the bad guy and sympathize with Robert and his hot girlfriend, so it does nothing in its first 45 minutes to establish or validate that dynamic. Characters react negatively to Judith without any justification for those reactions presented to the viewer. And while she does go eventually crazy and retroactively prove those reactions accurate, it feels arbitrary and forced. Only if you're inherently biased against the mother in divorce proceedings will you connect with the outlook in this film.
Now, there's a bunch of other garden variety dumb stuff here, like Robert letting Kess spend the weekend with Judith AFTER she fakes a violent attack on herself and blames Robert's girlfriend. Judith takes a broken piece of glass and cuts her own face, yet Robert has almost no hesitation in sending his son to be with such a psycho. And Robert's the one we're supposed to be rooting for? There's also the fact that both Robert and Judith apparently thought it was okay for their very young children to play around with real handcuffs. Who lets kids play with real handcuffs?
Fundamentally, though, it's the prejudice against the wife/mother character than dominates this movie and warps it into something silly and superficial. This could have made a good story but only if it was told by somebody that wasn't already angry at his ex-wife.
There is some female nudity here, but mostly from an obvious body double with only a nip slip from the sensual Jamie Lee Curtis. An oddly oblique incest reference also crops up.
Mother's Boys might have some use as a Rorschach Test for women dating a recently divorced guy. If he thinks this is a great film, he's probably still got a lot of rage to work out. As general purpose entertainment, it's a failure.