Mother's Day (2016)
Directed by Garry Marshall
Sandy is a stressed-out, single mom who learns that her ex-husband is marrying a younger woman. Her friend Jesse's parents don't know that she has a family or that her sister, Gabi is married to a woman. Jesse's friend, Kristin, is juggling motherhood of a toddler, a patient boyfriend who keeps proposing, and searching for her biological mother. Bradley is a widower who's trying to raise two daughters on his own, while Miranda is too busy with her career to worry about children. When their respective problems intersect and start coming to a head, the Mother's Day holiday takes on a special meaning for all.
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What critics compared Mother's Day to
Director Garry Marshall’s latest effort (* out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters Friday) to ape the holiday-themed, intertwined-tale magic of 2003's Love Actually — Valentine’s Day (2010), New Year’s Eve (2011), etc. — may boast a star-studded cast but it’s a spectacular dud on every other level with tonal whiplash, a little casual racism played for jokes and a script seemingly pulled from Hallmark cards rejected for being too hokey.
Recently, Garry Marshall has started his own mini-movie franchise with holiday movies, clearly inspired by the modern-day Christmas classic Love Actually (comparisons stop there).
Sure, you’ll forget all about it a week after you’ve seen it, but it’s mostly pleasant and occasionally touching, even though it’s a lot closer to an episode of “The Love Boat” than “Love Actually."
Just like the wonderfully made “Love Actually,” “Valentine’s Day” weaved together a host of romantic stories all played out on Cupid’s holiday.
What “Love Actually” did for Christmas, director Garry Marshall has been attempting — and failing — to do with every holiday on the calendar.
But like their somewhat better British cousin Love Actually, those movies had enough memorable moments to raise the overall enterprise.
Marshall, one of the great creative minds of Hollywood and the man behind Happy Days and Mork & Mindy back in the day, offers a modern wink at his sister Penny’s A League of Their Own — “There’s no texting in soccer” — and even pays homage to his own work, with Hector Elizondo playing a confidante to Roberts’ character, much like that in Pretty Woman.
Sometimes, Marshall and his writers’ room give up on the hard work of forging their own hacky gags and settle for references to other films from the Marshall dynasty, like a Pretty Woman “salad fork” non sequitur between Roberts and Marshall’s smug mascot Hector Elizondo, or a scene where Sudeikis must wanly refer to A League Of Their Own (directed by Marshall’s sister Penny) by announcing that “There’s no texting in soccer.”
She even played the tragically lost wife of Jason Sudeikis' widower in “Mother's Day.”