Mother's Boys

1994 "This divorce is going to be a nightmare."
5.4| 1h36m| R| en
Details

Sexy but unstable wife and mother Jude walked out on her family three years ago. Now, just as suddenly, she is back. But her husband, Robert, has fallen in love with Callie, an assistant principal at his sons' school. He asks Jude for a divorce. She responds by trying to turn her three boys against Callie, then by slashing herself and blaming her rival and finally by drawing her 12-year-old, Kes, into a murderous plot.

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Reviews

ThiefHott Too much of everything
VividSimon Simply Perfect
Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Jack_Rabbit_Slims91 It seems the late 80s/early 90s really thrashed the 'attractive woman from hell' storyline to death, from Fatal Attraction, Poison Ivy, Misery, Single White Female, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle etc., MOTHER'S BOYS was chronologically one of the last in the cinematic phase and quite frankly shouldn't have been made in the first place. The whole story has been done to death, This time instead of a one night stand or a new roommate, it is the abandoning mother (Jamie Lee Curtis) who wants her family back and will stop at nothing to get her way, especially when her ex (Peter Gallagher) is dating the assistant principle (Joanne Whalley) of the school their sons are going to. So Curtis's character initially plays the wholesome, reformed mother who has learned from her mistakes and manages to gain time with her sons, managing to manipulate her eldest son against the new woman in their dad's life. Vanessa Redgrave rocks up in a few scenes as the grandmother, and she not only looks out of place but is just too good of an actress to be in such a crap film and part. Jamie Lee Curtis, looking amazing, is a great actress and really tries but fails as the script lacks any development for her character or any character to interest the audience. The film flopped big time at the box office when it was released and was soon welcomed to VHS/late night TV screenings where it belonged. Give it a miss.
MBunge This movie is a great example of why a guy who's gone through a bitter divorce should not try to make a Fatal Attraction-style erotic thriller. I don't know if it was the writers, the director or some studio executive, but I know that somebody vital to this production was really ticked off at his ex-wife. It's the only possible explanation for this misfire.Robert (Peter Gallagher) is a successful architect with a girlfriend (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer) and three sons. He also has a wife who left him three years ago and is only now returning because Robert has finally started divorce proceedings. Why he waited three years to do that is a whole 'nother story that isn't even touched on in this film. Judith (Jaime Lee Curtis) is fairly intense and everyone, including her own mother (Vanessa Redgrave), acts like there's something wrong with her. However, for the first 45 minutes of Mother's Boys, Judith more or less behaves like a normal woman who made a terrible mistake and wants her family back.After that first 45 minutes, Judith goes from 0 to crazy in less than 45 seconds and the rest of the story is about how she tries to turn her favorite son Kess (Luke Edwards) against Robert and his new girlfriend as part of a Rube Goldberg-esque plan to kill the girlfriend. The problem is that after that first 45 minutes, the movie could have revealed that Robert was crazy, his girlfriend was crazy, his sons were crazy or Judith's mother was crazy and it would have made as much sense as what actually happened.Mother's Boys automatically assumes the audience is going to identify Judith as the bad guy and sympathize with Robert and his hot girlfriend, so it does nothing in its first 45 minutes to establish or validate that dynamic. Characters react negatively to Judith without any justification for those reactions presented to the viewer. And while she does go eventually crazy and retroactively prove those reactions accurate, it feels arbitrary and forced. Only if you're inherently biased against the mother in divorce proceedings will you connect with the outlook in this film.Now, there's a bunch of other garden variety dumb stuff here, like Robert letting Kess spend the weekend with Judith AFTER she fakes a violent attack on herself and blames Robert's girlfriend. Judith takes a broken piece of glass and cuts her own face, yet Robert has almost no hesitation in sending his son to be with such a psycho. And Robert's the one we're supposed to be rooting for? There's also the fact that both Robert and Judith apparently thought it was okay for their very young children to play around with real handcuffs. Who lets kids play with real handcuffs?Fundamentally, though, it's the prejudice against the wife/mother character than dominates this movie and warps it into something silly and superficial. This could have made a good story but only if it was told by somebody that wasn't already angry at his ex-wife.There is some female nudity here, but mostly from an obvious body double with only a nip slip from the sensual Jamie Lee Curtis. An oddly oblique incest reference also crops up.Mother's Boys might have some use as a Rorschach Test for women dating a recently divorced guy. If he thinks this is a great film, he's probably still got a lot of rage to work out. As general purpose entertainment, it's a failure.
Howlin Wolf ... Not only is it offensively bad; it's also mind-numbingly obvious and poorly-paced. In the traditional three-act structure; the movie's plot should work something like this: Mother re-enters lives; Mother goes mental; problem is in some way resolved. Here, there's no gradually escalating tension, it's quite obvious that Jude is already 'barking', from the very first shot in which we see her... ! Some scenes are so sickeningly contrived it's quite obvious they've only been inserted to advance what little plot there is... Why teach your son to drive, for example, unless he's going to be in mortal danger by another 40 minutes running time??! Oh, and responsible stepmothers ALWAYS willingly allow themselves to be manacled by their young charges, just to raise the dramatic stakes... ! Rarely have I seen writing in even the cheapest of productions be so simplistic and ludicrously unbelievable..."Mother's Boys" can best be characterised as a third rate knock-off of such pulp-genre reliables as "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle"... It's amazing to think that capable actresses like Curtis and Whalley were suckered into this derivative slop - and regrettably Peter Gallagher's abject performance tarnishes their reputations almost as much as it does his!
lorenellroy Jamie Lee Curtis established her career playing the victim of homicidal maniacs,now in "Mother's Boys"she gets a chance to play the killer She plays a mother who walked out on her husband and children and now wants them back.The problem is that her husband is petitioning for divorce and is having an affair with a local teacher,played by Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. She sets out to try to re-capture the affections of the kids,virtually flaunting herself at the elder child and seeking to poison their minds against Dad and his new paramour. The film is predictable and the performances curiously lacklustre,even from artists of some quality. Redgrave steals the movie as the kids Grandmother but even she seems on cruise controlNothing special and for Curtis completists only