A Bad Moms Christmas

photo courtesy of comingsoon.net

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     Disclaimer: Full disclosure, I have not seen the original movie, Bad Moms (2016). I did, however, read its Wikipedia page. So I think we’re good here.

     A Bad Moms Christmas reunites Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn for another round of misbehavior and general debauchery. This time around, as our favorite bad moms Amy, Kiki, and Carla decide to take back the most stressful time of year—the Christmas season—for themselves, they find a new and more terrifying obstacle in their way: their own mothers (Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines, and Susan Sarandon) coming home for the holidays. Interestingly enough, A Bad Moms Christmas is actually one of two Christmas-centric, comedy sequels released this November in which the conceit is that the main stars of the original film are joined by their parents (the other being Daddy’s Home 2, which releases November 10^th). I think this says something about the state of American filmmaking.

photo courtesy of youtube.com

     The weird thing about A Bad Moms Christmas is that at times it feels like a stoned frat guy tried to write a movie about motherhood for his intro screenwriting class, and at other times it taps the brakes real hard and feels like it’s trying to be a warm and fuzzy meditation on modern family relationships for twenty minutes at a time. At yet other times, it serves as an extended infomercial for Sky Zone, of all things. It’s an odd mix, but it almost seems to work in some twisted way.

     Most people who loved the first Bad Moms will find what they want here; there’s plenty of raunchy humor to go around. But if you’re just in the market for a comedy, you could do a lot better than A Bad Moms Christmas. Hell, if you can stand superhero movies, Thor: Ragnarok is much funnier. The humor here stems from the fact that these legitimate actresses are being irreverent, crude, and downright filthy on camera, and while that’s a legitimate plane for a movie to exist on—there’s a genuine hilarity in things like hearing Christine Baranski scream “You nasty bitch!”—you get the feeling that even in that respect, Bad Moms Christmas could do better.

photo courtesy of vox.com

     A Bad Moms Christmas doesn’t have great writing. Sure, it earns some laughs, but for every solid joke there’s a missed opportunity right alongside it. Too often it relies on shock value or dirty language for punchlines—though, I suppose that’s kind of the entire premise of the movie. It doesn’t help that Bad Moms Christmas has the annoying habit of explaining its jokes, which is kind of the baseline indicator that something’s not working right.

     Part of the problem boils down to awkward editing and pacing. There are small examples, like when the camera cuts to Mila Kunis to watch her laugh literally every time Kathryn Hahn cracks a joke. Then there are bigger issues, like how the film concentrates all of its “moms going crazy” moments into two or three (often slow-mo) montages. In sequences like that, when the images alone bear all the comedic weight of the scene, it’s do or die, and the result is based largely on the timing and pace of the editing. But in A Bad Moms Christmas, those sequences were really hit or miss, and when they missed, it made for long stretches of awkward theater silence. Nine times out of ten, it would have been better to just let the actors’ performances carry the comedy, but it feels like the filmmakers were reticent to do so.

photo courtesy of metro.us

     In terms of performance, Susan Sarandon and Kathryn Hahn are by far the best duo. If it weren’t for the increased screen-time focused on Amy (Kunis) and her mother’s (Baranski) relationship, Sarandon and Hahn would be the unchallenged stars of the show. Susan Sarandon can make anything magical, so she naturally shines as an off-kilter, no-shame foil to Catherine Baranski’s character. As for Katheryn Hahn, it’s pretty clear that she has more comedic chops than either of her matronly counterparts. Baranski is occasionally hilarious, but she doesn’t seem quite at home in the role. Wanda Sykes, who plays Kiki’s psychiatrist, is a welcome addition even in her limited screen-time.

     It should be noted that for all its ridiculousness, A Bad Moms Christmas does put some effort into providing real emotional content, particularly in the latter half of the film. There are enjoyable observations about the relationship between a woman and her mother, and how the conflicts that arise there can compound as time and generations go by. I think it’s a nice touch that the movie also develops the relationship between the grandmothers, when it could easily ignore them in favor of the main circle of moms or the mother-daughter relationships. So even if A Bad Moms Christmas won’t dethrone Citizen Kane after all… it’s got that going for it. 

Watch the R-rated trailer here.

photo courtesy of vox.com