A Bad Moms Christmas

     Last Saturday night there was, for a change, a smorgasbord of  critically acclaimed  movies on the menu at theaters in the Columbus area:

   

    

     (This movie I saw the night before. It had received a 5-star, 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
        I didn't get it. At all. I thought it was the blandest, blah-est movie I'd seen since the last Greta Gerwig movie I saw.* It'll probably win an academy award.










*An awful flick called "Frances Ha" that won all kinds of critical praise.)
    

     But all I really  wanted to see was A Bad Moms Christmas.

     Like much of the country, I was feeling in sore need of a laugh. And some cheer. And some heart.

     And I'd loved the first Bad Moms movie (See post from 7/29/2017).

...the story of three stressed-out young working moms who weren’t making the grade in the expectations held up for “good” mothers,

….especially  in the eyes of the hyper-organized Class Mothers and leaders of the PTO who appeared to have their own domestic acts seamlessly together.

     The plotline of “Bad Moms” follows the chain of events that unwinds when the harried Everymoms decide to chuck it all and be Bad Moms who start indulging in such disreputable maternal negligence as serving their kids cold cereal for breakfast, making their kids fix their own lunches, letting the laundry pile up and bringing store-bought cookies for the school bake sale.
        Such a great laugh did I – and all the other moms who filled the theater the evening I saw the movie - get from “Bad Moms” that I yearned to relive the laughter in the sequel.
             

  And “A Bad Moms Christmas” delivered.

     In this second episode (of what I hope will turn into a long-lived franchise) of the saga of the Bad Moms, the Moms are frazzled, exhausted and maxed-out trying to make the perfect Christmas for their families,

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...in addition to having to trawl the mall in search of Christmas gifts for everyone they know.

     But the cherry on top of this seasonal stress-fest is the arrival of the Moms’ mothers for the Christmas holidays.

     Once again at the end of their collective rope, the Moms decide to pitch the holiday-hoopla, relax,

...and enjoy the holidays.

     However, as one of the visiting mothers informs her daughter, “Mothers do not enjoy, they give joy. That’s what it means to be a mother.”

      And so the hilarious tension rises as the characters act out in the funniest way the push/pull of need, guilt, aggravation, and ultimately love that defines the mother - adult daughter relationship - especially during holiday gatherings.
     And though, as one who’s been on both sides of that equation I could definitely relate to the mother – daughter dynamic, one doesn’t have to be a mother or a daughter to get a kick out of the comedy the script and these actresses provide.
      So my advice this season is to put the deep, cerebral, intellectually challenging film critics-choices on hold ‘til the new year. What the world really needs for Christmas is a good laugh.