**Spoiler Alert**
Director: Jon Lucas, Scott Moore/Starring: Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Christina Applegate, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jay Hernandez, Annie Mumolo, Clark Duke, David Walton, Oona Laurence and Emjay Anthony
Another distaff ensemble makes its way to the multiplex just a fortnight after the release of Ghostbusters with Jon Lucas and Scott Moore's Bad Moms. The preview and the premise seemed very promising; a group of mothers fed up with the taxing demands of parenting and running a household, as well as the fascistic PTA, rise up against the overwhelming rigors of motherhood. But Lucas and Moore's film becomes a bundle of hit and miss funny moments--mostly misses. Nevertheless, it succeeds as an enjoyable bauble and is a helluva lot more fun than most other summer comedies we've seen in 2016.
Set in a modern day suburb of Chicago, Bad Moms tells the story of Amy (Mila Kunis), a mother of two whose career and extracurricular life have severely bogged her down. Though she's young, Amy finds she isn't young enough for the gourmet coffee company for which she works part-time, which is staffed by young, hipster twenty-somethings who play ping-pong during work hours and are immune to the stresses of adult life. Her young, entrepreneurial boss; Dale Kipler (Clark Duke), undervalues her and can't understand why she won't side-step a heavy workload to watch the staff play ping-pong. But Amy's problems extend beyond her job, for she must contend with her husband Mike (David Walton); an unhelpful slob who works out of their home and two children; Jane (Oona Laurence), who stresses about making the school soccer team and her son Dylan (Emjay Anthony), who is failing science and can't complete a homework assignment without his mother's help. When Amy tells Mike that Dylan is failing science, the father shares a congratulatory fist-bump with his son.
Amy's life trials also involve the school PTA president Gwendolyn (a very inspired Christina Applegate); who wields great, intimidating power over the mothers and the school faculty. Gwendolyn and her two obsequious minions; Stacy (Jada Pinkett Smith) and the dim-witted Vicky (Annie Mumolo), say catty, mean things about the other mothers while they stand on the school steps every morning like two-faced sentinels. Gwendolyn and company offer Amy some venomous compliments about how she is able to work and raise her kids. Amy's response to Gwendolyn's question about why she doesn't devote more time to being a mother is quite funny: "because I work."
Over-burdened at home and weighed down by her job and the PTA, Amy's troubles begin to mount when she happens upon her husband watching a naked woman on his computer. Her husband admits to a cyber-affair, which prompts Amy to expel him from the house. Amy presses on, but finds herself coping with yet another problem. When Amy arrives at the PTA meeting, she finds Gwendolyn onstage, dictatorially addressing an audience of mothers. In one of the film's funniest scenes, an absurdly long list of forbidden bake sale ingredients plays on a large video screen behind Gwendolyn as Amy walks slowly down the aisle toward the stage, dumbstruck by what she sees. Gwendolyn proposes the formation of a bake sale police, which is accompanied by images of black clad policemen in jack boots on the screen. Funnier still is how Gwendolyn's idea is juxtaposed with an image of someone being beaten by a police officer with a baton on the screen behind her.
Having had enough, Amy voices her objections to Gwendolyn's agenda by explaining how difficult and exhausting her life is already. She turns her back on an angry Gwendolyn and walks out of the auditorium to the sounds of gasping mothers.
She retires to a local bar for a drink and is approached by a mother named Kiki (Kristen Bell), who expresses her admiration for Amy for defying Gwendolyn and the PTA. The two meet another mother who happens to be sitting next to Amy; Carla (Kathryn Hahn); a salty, sexually aggressive woman who has also become disgruntled with the pressures of motherhood. Commiserating, the three make drunken, spirited pledges to be bad moms. After leaving the bar, we see the three enter a supermarket in slo-mo. The montage that follows shows them drinking in the aisles, mixing alcohol with milk and generally making a spectacle of themselves.
In her new commitment to being a bad mom, Amy refuses to make her kids breakfast and as a symbol of her rebellion, she appropriates her husband's muscle car before speeding her kids to school. Ignoring Gwendolyn's dietary proscriptions, Amy shows up at the bake sale with store-bought glazed munchkins. Furious at the sight of her offerings, Gwendolyn accosts Amy at the table and after an unpleasant exchange, she violently clears the munchkins from the table. The hostile encounter prompts Amy to declare her intention to run against Gwendolyn in the next PTA election.
The film was doing so well up to this point, but I was disappointed that Amy wasn't spurred on to something nastier than a PTA campaign. Just when the story needed more bite, it settled for timidity. But being that the PTA is everything for someone like Gwendolyn, Amy's response makes sense, story-wise.
As Amy kicks-off her campaign with Kiki and Carla's help, the three women form a close, commiserative bond. Subplots begin to take shape as the narrative progresses. Amy is courted by the stud single parent; Jessie Harkness (Jay Hernandez) before her husband returns home, hoping to fix their marriage. Never abandoning her motherly duties, Amy discovers Gwendolyn has bullied the school soccer coach into benching Jane, which necessitates personal intervention. Amy also tries to teach her son self-reliance, which requires her maternal patience and care.
Hoping to attract PTA mothers to her cause, Amy hosts a party, which initially is a dud. Amy, Carla and Kiki discover Gwendolyn chose the same night to host her party; a more successful gathering of wall-to-wall moms. Gwendolyn's party is so well-attended, even Martha Stewart turns up as a guest serving hors d'oeuvres, which makes for a very amusing cameo. While Amy, Carla and Kiki concede defeat, their fortunes suddenly turn when Gwendolyn begins bullying her guests and boring them with tedious campaign talk, which causes the gathering to abandon the party. The mothers show up at Amy's party, which subsequently becomes a raucous affair; one even Martha Stewart can't resist.
It is isn't difficult to see where the story will go. We know everything will come down to an election night showdown between Amy and Gwendolyn. We also know other plot-points, like Amy's troubles with her boss, her burgeoning relationship with Jessie and her troubles with her kids will be addressed in typically tidy, Hollywood narrative fashion. There is even enough narrative space for Kiki's problems with her uptight, Napoleonic husband and Carla's inability to relate to her jock son.
The movie has a point to make about how mothers are overworked and saddled with too many worries and tasks men typically ignore or avoid. It makes its case in a reasonably compelling and sometimes funny way.
Being a Hollywood production, it is unsurprising that the laughs drizzle instead of pour. Some moments that should be funny somehow fall flat, such as a scene where Kiki and Carla help Amy choose something sexy to wear for their night out. We expect the two women to make some witty and sharp comments about Amy's drab wardrobe but it doesn't happen. And the subsequent scene at the bar, where Amy finds her flirty banter with men is really repellent motherly advice could have been funny--or funnier.
But the film was cast well. Kathryn Hahn is amusing as the foul-mouthed mom, as is Kristen Bell though she should have had more comedic screen time. For me, Christina Appelgate's Gwendolyn was a juicy bit of comedic business. She plays the bitch well and she's very funny.
One of the film's most creative moments came during the end credits, when the female cast-member's mothers share their experiences of being moms.
Bad Moms is a coulda-been movie. If it had just sharpened its satirical edge a bit more, the laughs might have been more frequent but Amy is just too nice. If and when a sequel is conceived, the filmmakers might keep that criticism in mind. If you include the word bad in your title, then having the characters be bad becomes an imperative.
