An Off-Kilter Screwball Farce About a Needy Mother and Her Put-Upon Son
I have an inexplicable fondness for this slight, oddball 2008 comedy. It's not the catastrophic train wreck others would have you believe it is. Instead, director/screenwriter Vince DiMeglio has concocted a screwball farce with off-kilter characters that alternate between endearing and irritating, often in the same moment. The film is by no means a significant milestone in cinema, but it does generate some unexpected laughs mostly due to Diane Keaton's freewheeling performance. The Oscar-winning actress may appear to be slumming here, but her dexterity is put to the test as one incredibly needy and critical mother.
Usually a second banana in films, Dax Shepard (Baby Mama) plays Noah, a physical therapist who gets fired and wants to change his luck by starting his own practice. Married to Clare, a schoolteacher who wants to have a baby badly, he finds his wife's cousin Myron, a dweeby screenwriter...
??
Oh . . where to begin. First of all, I love Diane Keaton - in fact I like all of the lead characters. But this movie is SO bad - I couldn't believe how bad it was. It supposed to be about Diane Keaton being a 'smothering' mother - huh?? You don't even see her do that much. Maybe it's the writing, I don't know. It just didn't make any sense at all. Except for Ken Howard (Diane Keaton's husband) - he was the best of the lot - the second star is for him.
KEATON IS MORE CRAZY THAN SMOTHERING, BUT IT GETS BETTER AS IT GOES ALONG!
Another screwball comedy with a good cast, this one with Diane Keaton as a kooky woman who comes to stay with her son and his wife during a fight with her husband. At first it's more irratating than funny, but it does have some good laughs as the film progresses(the Funeral is a highlight). It's nothing special, but it's not all that bad either.
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