| Motherhood | |
|
Yes, Eliza Welch (Thurman) is busy trying to organise a party, yes, the “action” takes place over 24 hours but whereas Virginia Woolf encapsulated a feel for the period, the social structure and a snapshot of her heroine’s life, Dieckmann merely manages to make all middle class mothers appear utterly loathsome. What is it? A month since the Haiti Earthquake? While I’m not one to take the moral highground, and generally like a slab of dumb entertainment as much as the next man, trying to find sympathy for a woman who’s biggest problem seems to be she might occasionally have to move her car and clean up a dog turd is something of a challenge. Remember Caroline Phillips in the Evening Standard and her middle class angst about the Kilburn tornado? The clementines “vomited” across her limestone floor? This is basically the cinematic equivalent. Eliza is a former novelist turned mother and – because this is the 21st Century – a “mom-blogger”.  Putting aside the fact that her blog name, The Bjorn Identity makes no sense (she’s not Swedish, there’s nobody called Bjorn... did they mean The Born Identity?), Eliza is barely coping with her two small children, her sweetly oblivious husband (Edwards) and is missing a sense of her own identity. On the day her daughter’s sixth birthday party is to take place, Eliza finds herself running around New York to complete her errands while simultaneously attempting to win a paid job by completing an essay on “What does motherhood mean to me?” and trying to build bridges with her best friend Sheila (Driver). While it’s all very nicely observed – a one-upmanship conversation about children’s parties is particularly droll - and sweetly shot, it’s damn near impossible to give a monkey’s about any of it. Thurman does her damnedest, Edwards is always excellent value and Minnie Driver pops up to remind us all that, actually, she’s a bloody good actress and incredibly natural screen presence. But it’s all to no avail. It’s not particularly funny, it’s not particularly relevant and it doesn’t throw any light on the situation. Not only that, the target audience will probably miss it because they can’t get a babysitter. And that’s funnier than anything on display here. Rating: ** Starring: Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards, Minnie Driver Director: Katherine Dieckmann Run time: 90 mins Certificate: 15 Release date: 5th March 2010 Review by Neil Davy
If you can get a babysitter, you might also want to try Leap Year... but maybe not... |
According to writer / director Katherine Dieckmann, Motherhood is equal parts Mrs Dalloway and Curb Your Enthusiasm. It certainly shares a visual tone with the latter, but one can only assume that Dieckmann has never read Mrs Dalloway and has cribbed that comparison from Wikipedia. 
