PARENTALLY INSANE
As moms in revolt, funny women go awesomely over the top
In its own cheerfully vulgar, cringe-inducing and consistently raunchy way, “Bad Moms” is almost as much of a cartoon as the animated hits still populating the multiplexes this summer.
Almost nothing about this movie feels “real,” including the setting. We’re told Mila Kunis’ Amy Mitchell and her family live in a Chicago suburb — but other than a few sweeping overhead establishing shots of the city’s skyline, it’s pretty obvious the film was actually shot somewhere else, i.e., New Orleans.
Sure, because New Orleans and Chicago are the Twin Cities, so alike in architecture, climate and culture.
Ah, but here’s the good news. Written and directed by the team that penned the “Hangover” movies, “Bad Moms” had me laughing out loud even as I was cringing, thanks to some fantastically over-the-top hijinks, crass but hilarious one-liners and terrific performances from Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn and Christina Applegate.
Kunis is funny, sweet and lovely as Amy, married to the charmless lunk Mike (David Walton). This clueless mope is a successful professional (witness their beautiful and spacious home), but he’s an absentee father even before Amy kicks him out of the house for having an online affair.
Even though Amy was already doing the vast majority of the parenting, with Mike out of the picture it’s all on her. In addition to Amy’s high-pressure job at a gourmet coffee start-up, she has to get the kids ready for school, make their lunches, discipline them, counsel them, nurture them and throw herself into a hundred other motherly duties, cuz that’s what moms do.
It’s overwhelming. It’s too much.
Christina Applegate’s Gwendolyn is the Wicked Witch of the western suburbs, the wealthy, judgmental and all-powerful head of the PTA, which in the universe of “Bad Moms” controls virtually every element of the education system. Everyone is terrified of Gwendolyn, including Amy — until Amy has a particularly terrible day and she simply can’t take it any more, and she explodes at Gwendolyn in front of the entire community, quits the PTA, declares herself a “Bad Mom” and decides to give herself a break, have a little fun and ground the Helicopter Parenting for a while.
Joining Amy in the impromptu Bad Moms club: Kristen Bell’s Kiki, a shy social outcast with four children at home and a husband who treats her like hired help, and Kathryn Hahn’s Carla, a sexually voracious single mom who wears too much makeup and hits on practically all the married dads.
Amy, Kiki and Carla go on a suburban mom bender. They eat junk food, they hit the spa, they bond over mommy war stories. They get dolled up and hit the town so Amy can meet a man — and who should show up at the bar but a gorgeous widow (Jay Hernandez)
“Bad Moms” is big on the wacky montages and the slo-mo shots of Amy and Kiki and Carla going wild. At times it feels as if everyone is stretching to make this a feature-length film. (Although I was thinking it could be adapted into a decent halfhour comedy series.)
PTA prez Gwendolyn is about as subtle as Dean Wormer as a villain, and her campaign against Amy (who decides to run against her in the conveniently imminent election) is brutal, cruel and literally felonious.
Meanwhile, the school’s soccer coach (none other than football great J.J. Watt, who’s actually pretty funny), Amy’s sexist boss (Clark Duke) and the aforementioned soon-to-be-ex-husband Mike are all caricatures who are so dumb it’s a wonder they can tie their shoes in the morning.
The sex talk is frank and then beyond frank. (This movie is not first-date material. It’s also not “take your mom” material, unless your mom is Kris Jenner.) Some of the dialogue is shock for shock’s sake, but much of it is clever and even insightful, albeit on a broad level.
Something tells me a lot of good moms will find some real truths contained within the bawdy antics of “Bad Moms.”