Mum’s the word in multi-layered modern comedy

Mother’s Day (12A)

Where does the time go? Jennifer Aniston is now at the age where she can play a woman whose husband leaves her for a younger woman. And Julia Roberts can send herself up as a product endorser pining for the daughter she gave up for adoption a quarter of a century ago.

Apart from these two icons, we also get Kate Hudson warming her hands at the fire of this breezy comedy. I found myself wondering when Scarlet Johansson was going to turn up. Or Jennifer Lawrence. Or even the redoubtable Meryl Streep.

Flann O’Brien once defined the typical west of Ireland family as “a father, a mother, 12 children and a resident Dutch anthropologist”.  If he was living in the America of 2016 he would have to add, “and an Indian, a trans-sexual wife, a surrogate child and a cuddly stand-up comic”.

Yes, they’re all here, in various stages of manic meltdown.  When I tell you the film is directed by Garry Marshall, he of the fluffy resolutions, you won’t be surprised to hear he teams Roberts up with her Pretty Woman co-star, Hector Elizondo. (Marshall was responsible for that slice of sanitisation too.)

The idea is that we’re exposed to all kinds of mums – single mums, alienated mums, dead mums, expectant mums, stepmums. It’s mildly entertaining but it seems to run out of steam about two thirds of the way through, Marshall jettisoning the eccentricity that made the first half vaguely risible in favour of his preferred penchant for tying up loose ends in cotton candy fashion.

As in most fluffy comedies, the marital felicities are ushered in at the heel of the hunt, this time to the backdrop of Skype, bouncy castles, intolerant parents from Texas and an Aniston who alternates bouts of talking to herself with a practice of managing to make even the most ordinary chores in life semi-chaotic. (And, boohoo, she doesn’t even have Courtney Cox or Lisa Kudrow to help her out like they do in Friends.)

Diversion

In the end, too many cooks spoil the broth. I think I counted 11 different storylines in the first 20 minutes. Maybe Marshall is using a diversion tactic, crowding his tapestry with so many characters, you forget how vapid most of them are.

If he took the plot of the bereaved father and developed it on its own, or any one of the other women with a connection to motherhood, the film might have approximated to some kind of reality. Instead, it becomes just a contrived  excuse to inflict a tenuous unity on so many dysfunctional lives.

You always know what to expect from a Garry Marshall movie. He directs “adult” fairy tales, i.e. those featuring tableaus not a million miles away from Jerry Springer – who’s namechecked here. There are pretensions to diversity but they’re all wrapped up in harmonious units before he signs off.

We deserve more defined mothers for mother’s day. And for Mother’s Day. 

Fair **