by kellie abrahamson kabrahamson1@aol.com
B Rated PG13 102 Min.
Director Michael Lehmann, best known for his 1989 classic Heathers, gets back behind the camera in his new romantic comedy Because I Said So, a story about two women looking for love and finding their own brand of freedom in the process. Because I Said So is now in theaters and is rated PG-13 for sexual content including dialogue, some mature thematic material and partial nudity.
Daphne Wilder (Diane Keaton) is a mom of three grown women and is finally learning to let go. Her older daughters Maggie (Lauren Graham) and Mae (Piper Perabo) are married and beginning to settle into stable adult lives. It’s the youngest, Milly (Mandy Moore), who, to Daphne, needs some guidance. Milly has her own catering business and is making it financially, but seems to have trouble finding the right guy. Her insecurities and tendencies to let men walk all over her attracts nothing but cheating losers and her mother is sick of seeing her daughter be hurt time and time again. In order to turn things around, Daphne places an ad in the online personals to find the perfect guy for her youngest. After meeting with a number of really terrible applicants in a hotel lounge, Daphne finds Jason (Tom Everett Scott), a successful architect who seems perfect for Milly. She arranges for the two to meet and they seem to hit it off. That is until Milly meets Johnny (Gabriel Macht), an attractive musician who charms the pants (both figuratively and, later, literally) off of her. Unwilling to see her little girl hurt again, Mom turns on the “overprotective/overbearing” switch and does her best to see that her daughter makes the right choice.
Meanwhile, Daphne’s own love life has long been in disarray. At 60-years-old, the widow is ever so slightly envious of her daughters and thinks her romantic life is completely over. Just when she’s given up, Joe (Stephen Collins) walks into her life and rekindles a spark that has long been extinguished.
It’s pretty obvious what happens in Because I Said So. We’ve all seen how the meddling mom story ends up. The film treads where many have already traveled and does little to improve on the formula. As predictable as it was, I really enjoyed Because I Said So as did the audience at the screening I attended. There were a lot of laughs during the film’s running time, many of them in response to the silly slapstick routines Keaton puts on throughout. These pie-in-the-face moments are cute but may not be everyone’s cup of tea. What had most of the audience in stitches were the sexual innuendos and banter between the daughters and their mother. The women talk frankly about sex and many of these conversations are hilarious. The comedy is almost like The 40-Year-Old Virgin only more fluffy. Fans of Fox’s tragically cancelled series Arrested Development will be tickled to see Tony “Buster Bluth” Hale make an appearance or two as well.
I particularly enjoyed the mother-daughter relationships in Because I Said So. They are completely unrealistic (who on Earth talks to their mother about their uncircumcised conquests?), but somehow irresistible. Even though it’s borderline gross, you almost want to have that BFF relationship with Mom after their shoe shopping/sex talk scene. It’s oddly appealing in an in-a-perfect-world kind of way. The acting in Because I Said So is fine all around. No one will win any awards here, but everyone holds their own quite well and is believable in their roles. While there has been some scoffing as to how Mandy Moore could possibly play a girl who is unlucky in love, the stunning starlet manages to dial back her hotness just enough to make it work. And speaking of hotness, what good is a chick flick without some eye candy? The gentlemen of Because I Said So all turn in terrific performances and are far from hard on the eyes. Gabriel Macht, who is virtually unknown in Hollywood, is particularly noteworthy in this aspect. I imagine many a girl will end up following his career very closely once they see his performance here.
All in all, Because I Said So is a good girl’s night out movie. It’s a charming film that, while completely and utterly predictable, still manages to keep you entertained until the very end. Ladies, please do not drag your guys to see this film. It’s got some funny parts that may make them laugh, but they will ultimately be bored once the true nature of the film reveals itself. Leave the boys at home and see this movie with some of your girlfriends or even, dare I say it, your mother.
The idea for Because I Said So began with a routine dentist appointment. Co-screenwriter Karen Leigh Hopkins was passing time in the waiting room when she overheard the story of a mother who was proud of setting up her daughter on dates with men she believed to be quite eligible.“I found the concept fascinating,” recalls Hopkins. “Here was a mother who desperately wanted to see her daughter married, but she was seeing her child make all the wrong decisions when it came to men. In the name of love, she decided to take matters into her own hands and blatantly pursue potential suitors for her daughter via the Internet…without her daughter’s knowledge. I thought, “There are limitless possibilities you could have with this in a movie.”
At the time, Hopkins was working with the film’s co-writer/producer, Jessie Nelson (who, like the Wilder daughters, has two sisters) on a different project. But once this idea of a modern-day yenta was fleshed out between the two, they realized the direction in which they wanted to put their creative focus and efforts. Nelson comments, “Everybody has a mother, and though all mother/child relationships are unique, I have no doubt every mom in the world wants to see her kids healthy, happy, successful and in love with the right person. The meddling mother comic possibilities are endless, and all could be based upon real truths. Everyone can relate, which is why the project took on great momentum once we started moving forward.”
In creating the script, the writers simply wanted audiences to see their own lives reflected. Continues Nelson, “This is a movie about very flawed characters who learn and grow and step on each other’s toes along the way. But at the end of the day, they love one another fiercely. There’s a certain hilarity within family dynamics. If you peel back the layers of any family unit, there’s going to be black comedy there. This is about, at the end of the day, how insane love is—motherly love, sisterly love, romantic love.
It’s messy and impossible, but that’s what makes it so incredible.”
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