Review: 'Motherhood'
Plot: A mother of two tries to rediscover her pre-maternal personality.
Bottom line: Birthday cakes, crabby neighbors, single friends -- this parenting comedy has no idea how cliched it is.
Cast: Uma Thurman, Anthony Edwards, Minnie Driver.
Length: 1:30
'Motherhood': Mom whines more than kid
Photo credit: Sundance Institute | Uma Thurman, left, in a scene from the film, "Motherhood."
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You'll know what to expect from "Motherhood" even before the opening credits. A camera pans over a topsy-turvy apartment, two sleeping children and a snoring husband until settling on Eliza Welch's to-do list, which includes this entry: "Blog?"
We can add Eliza, a Manhattan mom played by a harried and wild-haired Uma Thurman, to the fictional Carrie Bradshaws and all-too-real Julie Powells of the world, trying to turn their lives into sassy prose (and perhaps a movie deal). "Must a woman's soul wither up and die simply because she chose to become a mother?" Eliza types dramatically.
Writer-director Katherine Dieckmann seems wholly unaware that this character is tiresomely familiar and highly irritating. Surrounded by overprotective mothers, plagued by incompetent service workers and besieged by hostile neighbors, Eliza seems to have only one flaw: She cares too much.
She also complains ceaselessly, even though she doesn't work and lives in two West Village apartments. Her 5-year-old daughter attends school around the corner. When her hardworking husband (Anthony Edwards) and divorced friend (Minnie Driver) finally blow their tops, you might cheer.
The only time this film generates a spark is when Eliza meets another budding writer (Arjun Gupta) nearly half her age. Otherwise, you're spending 90 minutes with a woman who believes she's the first mother to post her banal thoughts to the Web. "Nobody really talks about this stuff," she says, in earnest.
