Movies for Moms - A Review of Five Films Mother Will Love

In honor of mothers everywhere, I decided to feature and review a few movies that are sure to please everyone’s mom. Sisters, dad’s and sons may spot a few of their favorites here too and I compliment them on their sensitivity and good taste, but I have an idea that moms were the filmmaker's target audience in every one of these five fantastic films.

_{A Red Hot Mama Movie...}

"Calendar Girls" – If “When Harry Met Sally” is the ultimate “chick flick”, then "Calendar Girls" has to be the ultimate “sexy old bird flick”. The nice thing is that even the starchiest of moms will get a kick out of this joyful, eye-opening film that proves real moms can be funnier than any script-writer.

Based on a true story, "Calendar Girls" stars Helen Mirren (Chris) and Julie Walters (Annie) as members of The Women's Institute, a (for real) traditional English ladies club that nurtures time-honored women's interests like knitting, jam making and flower pressing. Chris is disillusioned with the value of the club's activities which don't get any more thrilling than boring weekly lectures about the joys of broccoli and choosing a new carpet. After a brief bit of soul-searching, she convinces the other ladies to do something more challenging, like posing nude for the annual W.I. fund-raising calendar.

Whoever said British country moms were somewhat staid never met these Yorkshire gals. They're certainly spirited enough to know that sex sells even if the pin up girl looks like somebody's mother.

According to Chris and Annie, it's all quite justifiable since it's a charitable venture anyway and the expected modest sales from the calendar will (hopefully) pay for a new sofa for the family room at the local Yorkshire hospital. Of course, baking, gardening and other respectable women's work are to be tastefully incorporated into each month's pin up photo.

Pardon the pun, but this movie is a hoot. Watching middle aged moms go from over-the-hill to top-of-the-charts is a true delight... and Mom's cherry pies never looked so good.

_{Reluctant Mother Makes Good}

"Baby Boom" - This 1987 classic stars the now proverbial American Mom, Diane Keaton in her first big “Mom” role. Unlike some of Diane’s more recent, vapidly insipid mom roles, “Baby Boom” takes a sane, often sarcastic look at modern motherhood. This is Diane Keaton at her best; a regular grown-up Annie Hall but before she traded-in her tie for turtlenecks in every scene.

“Baby Boom” focuses not on dad’s or husbands or boyfriends, but on mother and child, although the organic health food industry also gets a spirited endorsement.

Keaton plays J.C. Wiatt, a high powered advertising executive whose life is turned upside down when a small child is dropped into her lap. It’s a film about the empty-nester reinventing herself, only backwards.

There are life-lessons to be learned from living backwards and they are demonstrated with both humor and charm in this smart, well-paced comedy, but “Baby Boom” is more aptly described as being the iconic film of the female yuppie generation; a movie to which all moms of that era can relate.

_{From Brooklyn to Ireland}

"Angela’s Ashes" - This is the marvelous film adaptation of Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir about his coming of age in Limerick, Ireland in the 30’s and 40’s.

It’s a hard life for young Frank and his siblings. After his baby sister dies, the McCourts move from a New York tenement back to their native Ireland, but the family soon discovers that life is just as hard in the old country. They all live in a one-room flat that is constantly flooding. Dad is a beloved drunk and Mother a long-suffering manic-depressive who miraculously endures her calamitous fate. She does more than endure, actually. She tirelessly provides the support, guidance and love her children desperately need. Angela pushes past the poverty and the problems of her alcoholic spouse. She is the consummate mother who lives up to her angelic namesake, sacrificing her dignity and her entire person to keep her children fed, (just barely) and with a roof (albeit leaky) over their heads.

The plot is tragic yet enchanting; filled with remorse yet uplifted by humor. Young Frank McCourt is brilliantly played by Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens and Michael Legge successively. Robert Carlyle plays Frank’s problematic father, Malachy and Emily Watson plays mother Angela.

It’s difficult to adapt a lengthy Pulitzer prize-winning novel to film, but Director Alan Parker does an admirable job presenting audiences with a poignant character study of tender relationships including a mother’s steadfast devotion to her children. For those mothers who love Irish movies but find “Angela’s Ashes” just a bit too sad, I recommend another popular Hub, “Four Irish Film Comedies You May Have Missed”.

_{Thank Heaven for Little Boys}

"The Chorus" - There’s good reason why this tender French drama is billed as “emotional, heartfelt and sentimental”. What mom can resist adorable schoolboys with voices like angels? What mother wouldn’t empathize with the drab, yet endearing choirmaster who is too awkward to win the heart of a beautiful woman, but who wins the heart of the film audience with his compassion, dedication and above all, by being “the teacher who made a difference”?

The story takes place in 1949 France at a country boarding school for unruly boys. The new music teacher, Clement Mathieu (Gerard Jugnot) understands and appreciates the boys far better than the old-fashioned, stuffy headmaster played by François Berléand. Mathieu sees his students not as ruffians, but as their mothers would see them; as diamonds in the ruff. If your mom loved "Mr. Holland's Opus," and "Billy Elliot", “The Chorus” will be just her cup of tea.

_{The Movie Only a Mother Could Love}

"Imitation of Life" - In 1959 when this poignant, socially forward film was released, everyone left the theater crying but the mothers cried the loudest. Based on the novel by Fanny Hurst, “Imitation of Life”, starring Lana Turner and Juanita Moore puts Mother on a pedestal so high she needs an oxygen mask. The story tells of a light-skinned, biracial daughter who decides to reject her heritage and her black mother and live as a white woman. The daughter’s shameless hubris is bad enough, but the fact that she treats her mother like a second-class citizen, makes sainthood for Mom a shoe-in.

"Imitation of Life" was quite a shocker in 1959. The film (actually a remake of the1934 original film starring Lousie Beavers), came out just as the civil rights movement was building momentum and the spirit of “black pride” was still ten years away. In any case, the film while politically correct, is still every daughter’s guilt trip no matter what color her skin may be. It’s a movie only a mother could love.

You don't have to wait for Mother's Day to recommend one of these wonderful movies to your mom. You may even enjoy watching it with her. Unlike mom jeans, mom hair and mom cars, most critics agree, these mom movies are really cool.

© Copyright Green Lotus, 2011. All rights reserved.

1- The 2010 ten census accounts indicates America’s multiracial population is growing far more quickly than many demographers had estimated.

news link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x593897

2- The original Calendar Girls reunite for a 2010 W.I. calendar.

news link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5308319/Calendar-girls-strip-off-for-charity-again.html