STEPMOM (6)

Directed by: Chris Columbus

Starring: Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts, Ed Harris

The Pitch: A divorcée resents her ex-husband's relationship with a younger woman and makes life difficult for her, aided and abetted by her loyal kids ; but illness changes everything...

Theo Sez: Maybe it's wrong to expect any truth or emotional honesty in weepies : after all, isn't crying at a tearjerker as artificial as laughing at a comedy or thrilling to a blockbuster - why should it be "real"? Maybe it's unfair to condemn this solely on the basis of its various lies and clichés, irritating though they are : the kids as pint-sized exemplars of wisdom, delivering killer comebacks with unlikely panache ("You do not run out on your mother!" "No, that's your job!") ; the bonding-via-singalong scene ; the caricature of the unsympathetic boss ; the odious counsellors ("Are you really in touch with what Anna needs?"), done without mockery ; the way Roberts goes from sworn enemy to best buddy with her stepdaughter after she helps her (wow!) draw a tree ; Sarandon putting on her brave, Caring face to console her child ("Life is full of hard things, sweetheart, and sometimes it isn't fair..."). It's so glib and mechanical you can find yourself resenting even the peripheral details (even the kids' bedtime story, turning the Gingerbread Man into the "Stinky Cheese Man", rubbed me the wrong way, though it's obviously not the film's doing) - yet the real problem isn't the surface phoniness but the message it conceals, trading heavily on bad-mother guilt and that strange masochistic impulse that's made maternal sacrifice a box-office hit since the pre-feminist days of MADAME X and STELLA DALLAS. It's beyond irritating - it's actually offensive - to see Roberts unprotestingly take the blame when the kids abuse her and everyone calls her irresponsible, or Sarandon bravely hiding her illness For The Children's Sake - both aglow with maternal pride, giving up careers to be "nurturing" and saintly, celebrating the view that motherhood is a woman's only true fulfilment, coming together, touchy-feely style, when Sarandon actually says that her daughter "doesn't have to choose - she can have us both. And she will be a better person because of me and because of you". Crude, manipulative, worthless tripe ; only Harris emerges with any dignity (and gets to deliver a seriously smooth marriage proposal) - the rest is two-hours-plus of the sickly sentiments usually associated with Mother's Day cards. In a word, nauseating.