Mother Knows Best

TV Movie
1997
TV-PG
1h 36m

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

656

YOUR RATING

Drama Thriller

A woman urges her daughter to get married. And when her daughter does, she doesn't think that she made a good choice. So she goes out and hires a killer to kill her son-in-law.A woman urges her daughter to get married. And when her daughter does, she doesn't think that she made a good choice. So she goes out and hires a killer to kill her son-in-law.A woman urges her daughter to get married. And when her daughter does, she doesn't think that she made a good choice. So she goes out and hires a killer to kill her son-in-law.

Director
- Larry Shaw
Writers
- Lisa Friedman Bloch
- Kathy Kirtland Silverman
Stars

See production, box office & company info

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

656

YOUR RATING

See production, box office & company info

See more at IMDbPro

Photos9

Joanna Kerns and Grant Show in Mother Knows Best (1997)

Joanna Kerns in Mother Knows Best (1997)

Grant Show and Christine Elise in Mother Knows Best (1997)

Joanna Kerns and David Spielberg in Mother Knows Best (1997)

Joanna Kerns, Grant Show, and Christine Elise in Mother Knows Best (1997)

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Joanna Kerns is actually 12 years older than Christine Elise, who plays her daughter. Both were born on February 12; Kerns in 1953 and Elise in 1965.

Quotes
[last lines]
Celeste Cooper: [with the reporters] Laurel?
[Laurel glares at her]
Celeste Cooper: It's not too late to tell them, sweetheart. Tell them, Laurel. Tell them I did it all for you.
Laurel Cooper Rogers: [bows her head down in anger] Goodbye, Mother.
Celeste Cooper: [leaves with the reporters] That's OK, she's just confused. When this is over, she'll know that I was right, and everything will be back to normal. Everything will be normal again.

User reviews21

Review

Featured review

7/10

A cut above the usual Lifetime fare, but what is that really saying?

This is a surprisingly okay film that I caught on Lifetime - okay and Lifetime with regard to movies is usually a contradiction in terms, but not this time. Well-cast and directed with a light touch by Larry Shaw, as well as a halfway decent script, "Mother Knows Best" is both entertaining and absorbing.

Based on a true story, the beautiful and talented Joanna Kerns plays Celeste Cooper, a socialite who doesn't like her daughter's husband. He's an auto mechanic instead of a doctor. So she hires someone to kill him. "I want him shot in the head," she instructs the hit-man.

Kerns really elevates this film with her glamor and no-nonsense line deliveries. She approaches the hit as if she's arranging for a catering job. Christine Elise is her daughter and Grant Show her husband, and both are appealing. David Spielberg is Celeste's henpecked husband. Watching his daughter from afar on her wedding day, he cries and says to Celeste, "She reminds me of you the day we were married." "Shut up, George," his wife says.

Good.

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