MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS – Review

If you are looking for a movie to celebrate with Mom this Mother’s Day, the warm-hearted MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS offers a better option that the Garry Marshall comedy named for the holiday. Both films feature a star-studded ensemble cast but MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS features stories that actually deal with motherhood, unlike Marshall’s unfunny comedy.

While it is the better movie, MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS is not without flaws. It has so many characters that is hard to keep them all straight, much less get to know them, and the dramatic, heart-tugging stories also could have benefited from a little sprinkling of humor.

The film stars Susan Sarandon, Sharon Stone, Christina Ricci, Courteney Cox, Selma Blair and Mira Sorvino, among others, in a series of stories that overlap or connect in various ways. The interlocking stories are generally built around a photographer named Rigby Gray (Selma Blair).

The indie film opens May 6 in theaters in select cities but is also available on video-on-demand. Paul Duddridge directs and provides the idea on which Paige Cameron’s script is based. As the title suggests, the film’s stories generally follow pairs of mothers and daughters coping with various relationship challenges. Mother-daughter conflict, separation and establishing identity, and career pressures are themes that run throughout the stories.

Mikael Levin’s photography well-done and often pretty, but director Duddridge really keeps the focus on the acting and multiple plot lines. In one story, Susan Sarandon plays the estranged mother of her real daughter, Eva Amurri Martino, who is struggling to establish herself after marrying against her mother’s wishes. The real connection adds a little special touch for the audience, enhancing the efforts of the pair. Overall, the acting is good but the excessive number of story lines does not leave the performers much room for character development. Pairing the stories down would have left more room to develop character depth and maybe add more backstory for them. As is, the actors bring as much as they can to the touching scenes and situations but there is a sense of rushing off to the next story-line to make sure everything is wrapped up by the film’s end. Scenes that could have had more emotional depth are reduced to sentiment, although several still succeed purely on the strength of performances.

While not perfect, MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS does deliver a warm meditation on some themes of motherhood that mothers and daughters can enjoy together, a pretty enjoyable “chick flick” for their special day.

“PG-13” by the MPAA for some mature thematic elements and brief drug use.

MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS opens on May 6th, 2016

OVERALL RATING:  3 1/2 OUT OF 5 STARS