Otherhood

Felicity Huffman. Angela Bassett. Patricia Arquette. 3 fantastic actresses. Putting them together in a film is a sure fire recipe for success ain't it...........ain't it? You'd think so wouldn't you. An academy award winner and two academy award nominees, how could you go wrong like? Well, sticking them with a hoary old script full of deeply unlikable characters is one way to go about it.

Carol (Bassett), Gillian (Arquette) and Helen (Huffman) are three mammies from Poughkeepsie who became friendly when their sons schooled together and stayed friendly as their sons became men. Terrible men, the type of men who forget Mother's day. This year the three of them have had enough and they roadtrip to New York City in an attempt to reconnect with the miserable little shits they gave the best years of their lives to.

This isn't good. It has its moments but they are lost in a mire of cringeworthy plotlines, hateful people (Helen in particular is a toxic piece of shit anyone in their right mind would run screaming from) and mawkish sentiment. Netflix loves these New York City set stories about the problems of the middle class but I can't see this one appealing to anyone. It's dull, it's terribly predictable and it's terminally unfunny for a film daring to call itself a comedy drama. It probably will attract an audience based on it's cast but they'll soon realise they've been sold yet another Netflix dud.

It's a shame because films with leading women over the age of 50 are as rare as hen's teeth. Hollywood's problem with middle aged leading ladies is endemic and this could have been a rare shining light had any bit of thought or effort put into the script. There's nothing here that hasn't been done a million times before. Raking over old ground isn't necessarily a bad thing but jesus give us something to hold out for, a decent character to root for at least. Angela Bassett's Carol is the one person here that resembles a genuine human being. Had the film's focus been narrowed to her and her estranged relationship with her son Matt (Sinqua Walls) we might have had something to work with but sadly the story keeps cutting back to Gillian and Helen and their horribly dysfunctional relationships with their fuckwit offspring.

It's not all bad I must say. Jake Hoffman as Carol's son Daniel looks uncannily like his father Dustin and plays the part of a clinically depressed Jewish New Yorker (His father's bread and butter as a young man) to a tee. Expect him to turn up in any number of Noah Baumbach films over the next few years. Those two will go together like thunder and lightning. The film's one other highpoint is Angela Bassett playing drunk. She's a rare performer who can do it both convincingly and in a funny way. For something most of us do regularly it's surprising how few actors can portray it believably.

That's it. 100 minutes long and we get two performances that won't make you grit your teeth in pain and one funny drunken moment. It's not half enough. Don't bother. You'll end up disappointed.