L-R: Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis and Kathryn Hahn in “Bad Moms”; Image courtesy STX Productions, LLC.(NEW YORK) — Conceptually, Bad Moms is funny. In this day of Facebook mom groups, mommy bloggers and the just plain oversaturation of parenting advice, a satire giving the perfect-mom meme the finger is just what the medical advice website ordered.
Furthermore, we have a cast brimming with funny women: Mila Kunis, Christina Applegate, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Annie Mumolo and Jada Pinkett Smith. You also have a few trailers that are funny.
As for the plot: Kunis is Amy, the mother of a pre-teen boy and girl. Like so many other moms, she’s stretched thin, with a part-time job that pays the bills and a full-time job called motherhood. Also like so many moms, she’s clearly under-appreciated by her husband, Mike (David Walton). She also feels like she’s being judged by other mothers — particularly Gwendolyn (Applegate), the evil and relentlessly obnoxious head of the PTA. It all conspires to fill her with self-doubt about her parenting skills.
Everything comes to a head after Amy catches Mike having an online affair with a dairy farmer. When Gwendolyn tries to force Amy to volunteer for a bake sale during a PTA meeting, Amy quits and hits up a local bar, where she finds Carla (Hahn), an “amorous” single mother, and Kiki (Bell), a stay-at-home, subservient mother of four. Fed up, they decide to become “bad moms.”
Based on the concept and cast, this is a movie you root for — and then you walk away disappointed. And here’s why.
Bad Moms attempts to flip the script on gender roles, but with the exception of a few jokes, you feel like you’ve seen this movie a hundred times before. It’s written and directed by Jon Lucas and Scott More, the same team that wrote The Hangover movies. Unfortunately, Bad Moms has that same, blatantly male sensibility, which screams, “this is how men think bad moms would act and behave.”
I’m not saying there aren’t funny bits — there are, including a standout performance from Hahn — but it’s largely unoriginal and seriously lacks authenticity. This may have been Lucas and More’s concept, but I would love to see it handled instead by Mumolo and her Bridesmaids writing partner, Kristen Wiig.
Two-and-a-half out of five stars.
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