MARSHALL MISDIRECTS THE ENSEMBLE MOTHER'S DAY

Year Released: 2016

Before we begin and finish as quickly as possible, reviewing a movie that, following banal versions of Robert Altman style NASHVILLE, A WEDDING and SHORT CUTS ensemble pieces (but winding up closer to READY TO WEAR), it should be noted that Garry Marshall, the man who helped Generation X grow up with Fonzie, Lenny, Squiggy and... everyone from HAPPY DAYS and LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY... and entertained "The Greatest Generation" and their Baby Boomers with THE ODD COUPLE... As a television Executive Producer/Mogul, turned into an, at first, pretty good theatrical director: A great one, actually. Or perhaps THE FLAMINGO KID, starring Matt Dillon as a young Brooklyn card-shark spending the summer at a rich resort as a cabana boy, winding up boy-toy for Janet Jones and a wishbone for proud yet unapologetically stubborn blue collar plumber dad Hector Elizondo and crooked fancy car salesman Richard Crenna, was a great movie with a good director...

The Very Best Marshall

Either way, Marshall's first venture, the effective AIRPLANE! style YOUNG DOCTORS IN LOVE, and a hit/miss lot after KID including the witty OVERBOARD and melodramatic BEACHES, led to his gigantic box office splash with PRETTY WOMAN... And his past three films, VALENTINE'S DAY, NEW YEAR'S EVE and... this turkey, MOTHER'S DAY, have all had one thing in common other than being god-awful ensembles... each are damn fun to bag on, that is, if you have the patience to stick around that long.

And MOTHER'S, compared to the others, is more down to Earth and less grandiose, centering on a few characters including Julia Roberts as a famous television jewelry seller; Jennifer Aniston, whose ex-husband landed a young sexy wife; an old fashion trailer trash couple with two daughters, reluctantly catapulted into the world of foreigners and homosexuals and... oh what does it matter? MOTHER'S DAY should work for, well, mothers and, hell, who knows, maybe their daughters, even though the humor is terribly timed and each scene is more awkward than the next. That's not saying females only enjoy vapid drivel; let's just meet in the middle and agree that Garry Marshall is bringing to the ladies what WWF provides men: yet one seems a lot more realistic, and packs way more laughs.

RATING: *