Constantly harried, Amy finally has enough when she finds her husband engaging in online sex and tosses him out. Further run-ins with Gwendolyn and Dale, as well as escalating irritation with the kids’ demands, take her to a bar, where she connects with Carla (Kathryn Hahn), a single mom who speaks proudly of neglecting her son while catering to her own uncouth desires. And joining them there is Kiki (Kristen Bell), another mother from the school, who’s overwhelmed by a brood of young children and a husband, Kent (Lyle Brocato), who treats her like a doormat. The trio decides to take action, which involves Amy running for the PTA presidency against Gwendolyn, who reacts by targeting her daughter by planting drugs in her locker. 

Naturally, despite all the obstacles Amy will eventually triumph, not only by throwing a meet-and-greet party at which the wine flows freely and everybody gets sloshed, but by making that final pitch about making mistakes at the election rally—a message that resonates with all the other mothers in the room—and, the filmmakers obviously hope, in the theatre.

Virtually all the men in Bad Moms are jerks. Mike is an obtuse, selfish boor, and Kent a fascistic boob. Both get their comeuppance, of course. Dale is a goofball who doesn’t recognize Amy’s workplace worth—he fires her, only to realize that she was the only thing keeping the office from absolute chaos. Other male characters—the school principal (Wendell Pierce) and soccer coach (J.J. Watt) are weaklings, easily railroaded by Gwendolyn. Of course, this treatment of men might be considered fair, given how women have been portrayed in so many other recent movies. Of course, there are a couple instances of masculine propriety: Dylan actually learns to cook to help his mother, and an absolutely perfect guy named Jessie (Jay Hernandez)—a handsome widower with a darling daughter—is introduced to serve as a potential second spouse for Amy. He’s so good that he seems from another planet—or at least from another movie. And, of course, true to stereotype Amy melts in his presence—as in the dumbest romcom. That’s some testament to female liberation.

It’s also par for the course in a picture where women hardly come across as role models, either. Amy is spunky and Kiki chirpy, but both find their refuge in the bottle way too easily, and Carla is ostentatiously crass and unapologetically selfish. Poor little Jane is already a candidate for serious psychological trauma, and Gwendolyn is a storm trooper, though at the end she becomes part of the sisterhood, too.

Some of Bad Moms works on a simple sitcom level—a marital counseling session for Amy and Mike conducted by a skeptical therapist is a hoot, thanks to Wanda Sykes’ appearance as the doctor. There’s some repartee among Amy, Kiki and Carla vaguely reminiscent of the back-and-forth that once marked truly funny TV comedies like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” (though mostly it hearkens back more to stuff like “Laverne and Shirley”). One also has to be grateful that it doesn’t descend too frequently to the gross-out limits that have marked movies like “The Hangover.” (Women still deserve some consideration, it seems.) It also has to be said that Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn and Christina Applegate are able farceurs, with the movie providing Kathryn Hahn in particular with what could be a true breakout role, and Oona Lawrence, Emjay Anthony is a likable moppet. (None of the men come off particularly well, although Jay Hernandez is certainly handsome and young Anthony once again shows that he’s one of the more personable male kid actors around.) From a technical standpoint the picture is okay, with Jim Denault’s widescreen cinematography using the New Orleans locations reasonably well.

While Bad Moms, directred by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore isn’t as awful as it might have been, but that’s a very low bar. The movie remains a palpably fake female wish-fulfillment fantasy, contrived by men with nothing but dollar signs in mind.