SYNOPSICS
Motherhood (2009) is a English movie. Katherine Dieckmann has directed this movie. Uma Thurman,Anthony Edwards,Minnie Driver,David Schallipp are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2009. Motherhood (2009) is considered one of the best Comedy,Drama movie in India and around the world.
Eliza Kendall Welch (Uma Thurman), mother of, Clara, and Lucas, lives with her spouse, Avery McKendrik (Anthony Edwards), in an Manhattan apartment. Today is May 25th, Clara's 6th birthday, and she has to make arrangements for a party, as well as attend to day-to-day chores, including Blogging, and entering an online contest 'Motherhood', and looking after her invalid elderly neighbor and a dog. Things will slowly get out of hand after her car gets towed due to a film shooting; the tire on her bike gets punctured; she alienates herself from her friend, Sheila (Minnie Driver); Clara's name is misspelled on the cake; while Avery refuses to answer his cell-phone. After being assisted by a delivery man, Nikesh (Arjun Gupta), who finds her attractive, she concludes she has had enough, and decides not to return home.
Motherhood (2009) Trailers
Motherhood (2009) Reviews
Motherhood redefines the word 'Insipid' *SPOILER*
The character of Eliza is as thin and see-through as the dress she wears through-out. I am disappointed not only by the poor characters and holey plot but by the portray of mothers in general. Every mother outside of the main characters circle seems to be pretentious and annoying. Scratch that all the mothers in the film are annoying along with our lead who is also sallow and whiny. Eliza complains that mothers are not regarded as people, well if that's the message the writer set out to shatter during the film all she succeeded in doing was enhancing it. The film does have some positive moments which are quite amusing. But these are drowned in Eliza's petty cry of 'It's so hard being a mummy!'. Eliza's sheer pathetic nature ruins any chance of a creditable message shining through. If the main character had been portrayed realistically it may have been partly salvaged. But Eliza comes off as having at the maturity of a school girl facing 'challenges' which have been blown out of proportion. What challenges does this women face? A time schedule, a flight of stairs, walking a dog and losing her car. Oh dear poor darling she's had a hard day. Her reaction of trying to run away towards the end of the film is ridiculous. 'My child has the flimsy plastic plates and hastily obtained gifts she asked for she doesn't need me!' Her husband gives her a poor review, if she had previously been a professional author she surely had received worse than that. I also found it remarkable that with her 'busy' schedule she managed to get take-away coffee, invite a strange man into her home and dance with him and go to a sale. Eliza demands through-out to be an individual not to be seen as just a 'mother'. This is perfectly justifiable but Eliza seems to merely be motivated by selfishness. The cold hard truth that the film hastily puts across is that she cannot be both. The moral I wanted to tell Eliza was that sometimes life is difficult and that when you have children they must come first like it or not. I also wanted to inform her how lucky she is. Her children are healthy, her husband doesn't use her as a football, she has a home and an income. All in all Eliza needs to grow up. The film doesn't not show the plight of mothers just the petty cries of well-off white women who have no idea what hardship truly is. I say she is rich because she can afford to feed her children and clothe them, buy things for herself and have a car. Some mothers believe it or not don't have that. I wonder how Eliza would cope handling their lives.
A Whiny Movie Of Little Substance
If you make the mistake of reading this movie's own description, you go into it thinking that you're going to find a light-hearted, funny account of a mother trying to pull off the ultimate birthday party. The early parts of the movie seem to reinforce this, especially the encounter with the snooty neighbour and daughter who go on and on about the fabulous birthday party they had pulled off. So, you think this is going to turn into a competition to make a better birthday party. But from that point on, any sense of fun in this movie just absolutely disappears, and never reappears. This becomes a sombre movie, that really focuses more on Eliza's disillusionment with her life, her husband, the sacrifices she had to make, etc., etc. Boo hoo. You had to sacrifice something for the sake of your children and things didn't turn out exactly the way you had hoped and dreamed they would. Well, Eliza, welcome to real life. Sometimes we sacrifice and change direction for the sake of our kids. It's called parenthood - or in Eliza's case, "Motherhood." OK. I didn't like the overall whiny tone of the movie or of Eliza's character. Setting that distaste aside, I have two fundamental problems with this: (a) it wasn't funny or even just humorous, and (b) it wasn't really interesting. There was nothing that made this story seem like a movie should be made out of it. Eliza's car got towed. Wow. Her friend got mad at her because she broke a confidence. Gee. She lost her parking spot. Tell me it ain't so! Gripping stuff. The only thing I felt compelled to watch closely was when Eliza brought the messenger in for a drink of water. You're thinking that "something" is going to happen between the two of them. I liked the way that turned out. Beyond that, the movie's really devoid of substance. It benefits from having basically likable leads. Uma Thurman and Anthony Edwards are fine. Not a lot of chemistry between them, and the one extended kissing scene between them in the whole movie seemed quite forced and artificial. But they're likable enough. They make it watchable; they don't make it good, though. (3/10)
A lot of ado about nothing
It's not terribly hard to sell water to people in the desert. It's also not very hard to make a movie reflecting on hard lives of mothers and gain respect of mother who watch it. The trick is to make such movie and sell it to people who aren't mothers. This movie failed on that line. Failed miserably. Motherhood is a long (it seems) movie about a mother that has to do it all. She tries to be a great mother, she tries to run errands, she tries to revive a dying career, she tries to take care of her elderly neighbor, and most of all, she tries to find peace of mind and justice in the world seemingly unsuited for mothers like her. If it doesn't sound original to you at this point, it's probably because it's not. And it doesn't get any better. The problem I personally had with the movie is that I can't seem to categorize it. It's not a comedy, it's not a drama, it's not a love story, and it's definitely not a family movie. The only thing that comes to my mind is that it's perhaps a movie made for mothers who probably won't find to watch it, but if they do, it will make them feel better for a day or two. As far as the personality goes, there really isn't any. Thurman's acting is surprisingly flat and annoying; she takes on more than she can chew just to bitch about it in her Carrie Bradshaw-like narrative bits she submits on her blog. She constantly asks the world, why can't a mother be still a person, why must she undergo a partial lobotomy and dedicate her entire life to make another happen. Well, I don't know. And if you think you'll watch the movie and find out, don't bother; no question is answered. There is no motto, no meaningful ending other than 'Gee, I really overreacted at that store today. I'm going to get up in the morning and be a better mother to my children'. I believe the answer could be, don't be mad, but...Nobody forced you to have a kid. Or two, for that matter. Motherhood is extremely disappointing as a movie, especially if you weren't born with an uterus; instead of trying to diminish the fact that some mothers are indeed a little psycho, it creates even a bigger gap between the men and the women, between the fathers and the mothers.
Idiotic and annoying. So THIS is motherhood? Come on!
I really disliked this movie, as it portrays an extreme situation, with people who are clearly irresponsible and aren't up to the task of properly raising a child. The husband was obviously retarded and gained a little fortune only by pure chance, which was really pathetic and didn't redeem his character at all in the end, although that was clearly what the directors intended. The entire movie is a confusing and annoying piece of trash. I'm sure such situations do exist, probably even worse, but trying to globalize this as being the usual motherhood is disgusting and discouraging to any future mother to be. I refuse to believe that the characteristics of a modern day mother is being hysterical, bitching, screaming, always dead-tired and frustrated, not to mention the father being a retarded being, showing absolutely no interest in raising a child or helping around the house. Instead, he is collecting old books, based on the idiotic hope of accidentally gaining a fortune someday which, bummer, actually happens in the end. Money clearly wasn't the main problem in this family, it was the lack of communication and team work, which remains unsolved even after the credits roll. Avoid, if you're willing to waste your time, waste it on a bad movie that can be perceived as entertaining, which is clearly not the case here.
How many movies about being a parent do we need?
My wife and I rented this the other night from the movie machine at Publix. I really had no interest in seeing it, but decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. I like Uma Thurman, and always found her sexy, sagging boobs and all. She seems like a competent enough actress, but she definitely has had the lions share of bombs, going back to Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, Gattaca, etc. In this movie, like billions before, it is set in Manhattan, which I am really quite sick of. The first few minutes of the film, in which we see Uma shambling around a shabby apartment, seemed kind of creepy, like a PSA for depression. The film is very uneven and can't be called a comedy, and really didn't seem like a drama or love story. If anything, it shows the average New Yorker as quite annoying and unlikable. Uma's character whines about not having time to do anything, even though she does not have a job and creates extra work for herself, like giving her elderly neighbor orange juice. She writes meaningless Blogs, Carrie Bradshaw- style, in the "little slices of free time" she has. She runs around like a crazy person, trying to prepare for her daughter's birthday, obsessing bizarrely over the fact that the day is the "last day my daughter will be 5". WTF was that all about? Also, why does she wait until the last minute to prepare for the party? She seems to want to be a victim, to be able to complain incessantly about the "hardships of being a mother". Like other posters said, having children is a choice (usually). Nobody forced her to have two kids, and a dog she doesn't clean up after! I am sick of so many unoriginal movies about parenthood. Why doesn't Hollywood do something original (fat chance) and actually portray a couple that cannot have kids? The fact that this movie flopped so badly is a good indication that people are sick of this type of movie. I will give this movie a little bit of credit for having the couple not be rich and I liked the Pylon song Uma and the delivery guy danced to.