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Theatrical Preview
Motherhood
 Official Synopsis:
Eliza Welch (Uma Thurman) is a former fiction writer-turned-mom-blogger with her own sit, The Bjorn Identity. Putting her deeper creative ambitions on hold to raise her two children, Eliza lives and works in two rent-stabilized apartments in a walk-up tenement building smack in the middle of an otherwise upscale Greenwich Village. Eliza's good-natured but absent-minded husband (Anthony Edwards) seems tuned out to his wife's conflicts, not to mention basic domestic reality, while her best friend Shelia (Minnie Driver) understands this -- and Eliza -- all too well.
Our Take:
Some of the most famous mothers in cinema history never appear on screen (Norman Bates' mother for example). Others play minor roles, but register in the national consciousness; "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" (White Heat) is a perfect example
Writer/director Katherine Dieckmann has taken notice, and exception. Her latest film, Motherhood, is her attempt to put the spotlight squarely on a mother. A mother in New York City. A hip mother that blogs in the West Village neighborhood of New York City. The result is a totally un-hip movie that is so overwritten, it makes Juno seem unaffected. Motherhood is like watching a blog. Every line of dialogue is just oh so precious and trying oh so hard to seem witty and smart. It is never a good idea to take cues from My Super Ex-Girlfriend, but Dieckmann does just that as she thinks throwing a pair of glasses on the gorgeous Uma Thurman will make her seem like an everywoman. Not at all.
The film also tries about as hard as an Ohio hipster transplant to seem like a "New Yorker" film. Everything possible is thrown in: foul mouthed men screaming out of cars, annoying movie shoots that close streets and disrupt residents, the mad dash for an alternate side parking spot, digs at New Jersey, stereotypical NYU undergrads spouting misunderstood ideologies... everything is there. Only it's presented in such a manufactured way that even though I have spent countless mornings rushing to move my car to the other side of the street, I could not even remotely relate to the cinematic presentation of the same in Motherhood. It was as if Katherine Dieckmann was so concerned with middle America getting all the NYC in-references that she sacrificed every shred of subtle authenticity that may confuse or alienate. The upper class resident of Thurman's block is haughty and French. Playing the French for a laugh, how cosmopolitan NYC resident-mom.
I appreciate my mother as I am sure countless others do. And I agree with Dieckmann's initial premise that there are not nearly enough films out there celebrating motherhood or featuring mothers as strong protagonists. But, I do not need to be talked at for over an hour about the trials and tribulations of motherhood. And quite frankly, I doubt mothers need to be talked at either.
Conclusion:
Motherhood has some fleeting moments of successful comedy amidst the saccharine "New York" movie that it fails at being. I was really hoping to say that this a nice film to take your own mother too, but I think she would appreciate a heartfelt "thank you" and possibly a trip to the movies to see something worthwhile instead.
Overall Picture:
Movie: C+
- Matthew Orlando
Staff Writer
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