Battle Cry of Motherhood | BAD MOMS (2016)

Amy, Kiki and Carla bond while grocery shopping. 

Dir. Jon Lucas, Scott Moore

Bad Moms is a rip-roaring look at modern-day motherhood that takes no prisoners and has a lot of heart. Mila Kunis effortlessly stars as Amy, a newly-separated, overworked and overstressed mother of tweens (Emjay Anthony, Oona Laurence), for whom things will get a lot worse before they get resolved. When it’s PTA president extraordinaire Gwendolyn (Cristina Applegate) who’s cooking your goose, there’s bound to be a lot of pain. But as it turns out, getting between a mother bear and her cubs is never a good idea.

Bad Moms offers no great innovations, just a good riff on what amounts to a romantic soft comedy backed by solid writing and a talented supporting cast. There are so many moments that shine. 

Gwendolyn’s explosive PowerPoint bake-sale rant against gluten sums up her barely-suppressed, simmering-under-the-surface control-freak nature. She’s as perfectly manicured as she is conniving. As members of her posse, tightly-wound Stacy (Jada Pinkett-Smith) plays bitchy second-fiddle to a tee, with clueless friend Vicky (Annie Mumolo) always ready with her corny, two-bit commentary. 

In the other corner we have Kiki (Kristen Bell), a home-school mom with too many kids to handle and peculiar ideas of fun. Bell, the former Veronica Mars heroine and Heroes starlet, turns in a surprisingly endearing performance. Joining her is Bad Moms’ real bad mom—slutty, single parent Carla (Kathryn Hahn)—who’s abrasive, raunchy and unapologetic, not to mention often drunk and the instigator of a random, three-way Sapphic kiss. Anyone wondering how to handle an uncut penis need look no further.

Rounding out the cast are Jay Hernandez as Jessie Harkness, a hunky widower and neighborhood object of lust, and Martha Stewart, who makes a cameo as herself, one of many instances in which common cursing is elevated to a fine art. It’s a trend that Bad Moms milks to the max, taking a comedy of errors to its logical suburban conclusion by challenging primness and propriety in all its forms, including the exhausting sport of keeping up with the Joneses. 

Kunis shows she is more than capable of holding center stage in this wild romp of a mom circus. She’s matured beautifully since her role in That 70s Show helped make her a household name at the tender age of 15, forever cementing her place as one of America’s sweethearts in spite of her TV character's catty persona. Now all grown up with a kid of her own (and another bun in the oven), Kunis plays to a new audience of PTA parents, not unlike those portrayed in the film, who’ve grown up right alongside her as loyal fans. Indeed, it’s her relatability, charm and good looks that carry the day.     

Bringing Bad Moms home are the interviews at film’s end in which cast members are paired with their mothers to share anecdotes about their relationship. And suddenly, a tearjerker is born.  

Jaws for a New Generation | THE SHALLOWS (2016)

Nancy kicks it with Steven Seagull while she figures things out.

Dir. Jaume Collet-Serra

A touching family tearjerker bookends this creature-feature about surfer-cum-medical student, Nancy Adams (Blake Lively), who travels to a secluded beach in Mexico to catch the perfect wave and cope with her mother’s recent passing. 

It’s an idyllic locale—Australia’s Gold Coast subbing picture-postcard-perfectly for the Mexican shoreline—and Nancy is as tough as she is smart, let alone athletic and lithe (not a little bit due to body-double, Sarah Friend).

A convincingly CG’d great white and gorgeous-yet-lethal cove conspire to give Nancy the battle of her life, a contest that pits woman against nature.  The taut ride is paved with jump-scares and gut wrenching instants, such as each time Nancy comes crashing into razor-sharp coral, or when she uses her gold earrings to staple together one of her wounds.  As a heroine she’s quite resourceful, later even making good with a stray shark tooth. 

A seagull (Steven Seagull in the film though his real name is Sully) plays an unexpectedly prescient supporting role, enough to infer that its white, feathery form represents maternal encouragement from the other side, a theme that concretizes when Nancy’s mom appears to her in a passing but powerful vision. Has an animal ever been nominated for an Academy Award?

Although it’s visceral to watch, The Shallows is never unnecessarily gory; suffice to say many summer beach vacations will have been ruined as a result.