Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) is a young woman with two adorable but demanding
kids—Jane (Oona Lawrence), a brain who’s obsessed with garnering
extracurricular credits to ensure admission to a prestigious college,
and Dylan (Emjay Anthony), who depends on Amy to do his homework and
school projects by claiming he’s a “slow learner”—as well as a husband,
Mike (David Walton), who brings in a good salary but gives her little
attention and less help around the house, and a boss, Dale (Clark Duke),
who’s long relied on her while underpaying her and showing her little
respect. She’s also bullied by the constant demands of Gwendolyn
(Christina Applegate), the autocratic chair of the PTA at the kids’
school, who runs the campus like a tinhorn dictator, aided by her
yes-women Stacy (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Vicky (Annie Mumolo).
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.