When a movie has the honor of being chosen to open The International Film Festival, you would imagine that it would be such a great film that you would be talking about it long after you have walked out of the screening. Such is not the case with "Motherhood" this movie has nothing going for it except it's main star. It comes off disjointed and appears to be nothing more than a senseless rant. The idea of sitting for ninety plus minutes listening to one actor complain over and over again about life's simple chores doesn't make a compelling movie, and the script seems as if it was written by a first time writer, who was given a small time frame to come up with a movie script and this was his final draft.
Eliza Welsh (Uma Thurman) trudges through life one task at a time, on the day of her daughter Clara's (Daisy Tahan) sixth birthday, Eliza feels that she alone has to deal with everything. Her husband (Anthony Edwards) walks around lost most of the time. Eliza is running around trying to move her car when she has to but not so far that she loses her spot, they have two rent controlled apartments in Manhattan, and Eliza wants to write again but has no time. When she hears about a contest she decides she is going to blog her entry, it of course must be submitted by midnight that night.
Eliza's best friend Sheila (Minnie Driver) steals her away for a little shopping, like she has time, Eliza is of course so busy that she is running around all over town trying to get stuff together for Clara's party, she goes to the party store where she is accosted by several of the others in line, it seems that no matter where she goes, there is always something going on that will slow her down. A film company has started filming on her street so her car was towed away and she has to take a bicycle to the store to pick everything up. At the bakery she finds out that they have misspelled her daughters name.
When she gets home she finds a messenger waiting at her door, he helps her up with all the groceries and almost becomes more then just a messenger, this leads to one of the most horrible gut wrenching scenes that I'm sure was supposed to be emotional but comes across as plain campy and over emoted. The party and its aftermath, the clean up and the movies payoff, for what it is doesn't come along fast enough, this movie is almost a chore itself to sit through, it is hard to believe that Uma Thurman would attach herself to a project such as this. I guess it's true a paycheck is a paycheck. What this movie needed was a different direction to start with, there is simply nothing going for it, the plot is silly and plain dull, the script is horrible written and drags in several areas. Uma Thurman may be the the only saving grace this movie offers but can I recommend it solely for her? NO I can not, although you can see that she tries to make this drivel work it is just not gonna happen with the script she has to work with. Given an A list director, this movie would still have fallen flat, I can not give you reason to go out and see this movie, Given the fact that this was the opening night film in the International Film Festival one would expect nothing but unmitigated nonsense to follow. I am glad to say that other movies that followed this one in the Festival saved the day.
I give Motherhood a 1 and on my avoidance scale a 3 this movie is one of those slow summer night cable movies, where it should have been released from the start, there it may have gotten a wider viewing then it deserves on the screen. The idea of the blog that Eliza writes would have made for a better movie.
Motherhood is rated PG-13 for Language, Sexual References and a Brief Drug Comment
Running time is 1 hr. 30 mins.
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