Review of “Smother”
The release of this film – about a son and his totally batty mother - is clearly designed to coincide with Mother’s day. It’s a concept film then, in the same vein as those Christmas or Halloween movies that Hollywood makes as product to sell on the back of a calendar event, and perhaps it might work at this level – an opportunity for mothers and sons to sit together in the cinema and have a laugh about nothing very much. But I’m glad I didn’t take my mum, because it’s an embarrassingly unfunny film which had me squirming in my seat desperate to escape, and disappointed with what has become of an actor of the caliber of Diane Keaton.
Keaton plays Marilyn Cooper - the mum of course - and perhaps she saw in this energetic, distracted, irrational, terrified yet loving woman, the chance to have some fun with the character. She arrives unannounced with her many dogs at the house of her son Noah (Dax Shepard) and daughter-in-law Clare (Liv Tyler). She’s had an argument with her husband Gene (Ken Howard) and needs somewhere to stay for a while. But Noah and Clare already have another unwanted guest – Clare’s country cousin Myron (Mike White), a hopeless screenwriter with a laptop and some talking software. All of this chaos is the worst timing for Noah who has just been fired and who is under pressure from Clare to start a family. It’s Noah’s story, and he has to re-negotiate his relationships with his mother and his wife whilst he deals with an empty pay packet and a crowded house.
It’s a dialogue driven film with little or nothing of cinematic scale, and is clearly meant to be comedy with a heart. The humour though, is rarely of a generous or quirky nature, preferring to rely upon mockery and embarrassment of the many weaknesses the characters carry. Typically it’s Noah’s frustrations with the situation that build up to the point where he turns on another character, always going too far with his verbal bashings and left – at the end of many a scene - as the insensitive cad.
Screenwriters Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio (Di Meglio also directed) have to contrive far too much in this film for it work smoothly, and you can almost feel the ticking of formulae boxes as the film clunks along. The cast work hard but there’s not much to love in these characters and not much to laugh about with the way they deal with their situation. Save your money and buy your mother a good bottle of wine.
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