the mother korean movie review

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Rent Mother on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

As fleshy as it is funny, Bong Joon-Ho's Mother straddles family drama, horror and comedy with a deft grasp of tone and plenty of eerie visuals.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Bong Joon Ho

Yoon Do-joon

Yoon Je-moon

Jeon Mi-sun

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Movie review: Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Mother’

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The explosion of South Korean cinema in the last decade or so has been extraordinary to watch. Not long after the vibrant Hong Kong industry started losing its momentum, Korea began to take up the slack. Extraordinary filmmakers such as Park Chan-wook (“Oldboy”), Kim Ji-woon (“A Tale of Two Sisters”) and Kim Ki-duk (“3-Iron”) developed reputations.

Bong Joon-ho, whose fourth film, “Mother,” opens in L.A. this week, is one of the best South Korean directors and arguably the most accessible to U.S. audiences. “The Host” (2006) -- which was an art-house hit in the U.S. and still holds the attendance record in South Korea for domestic films -- was a horror picture as well as a family comedy and drama. Likewise, “Mother” is a thriller as well as . . . something else.

Mother (Kim Hye-ja) -- like the title character in Roman Polanski’s current “The Ghost Writer,” she is never given an actual name -- devotes her life to looking out for her twentysomething son, Do-joon (Won Bin), who seems to be brain-damaged. He’s definitely not very bright, and his memory is wholly unreliable. When a local high school girl (Moon Hee-ra) is murdered, circumstantial evidence points in his direction. In no time flat, the cops persuade him to sign a confession. Case closed.

But not for Mother. Barely scraping by financially and ignored by the police and the overpriced lawyer she hires, she has to take on the investigation herself, with some help from Do-joon’s disreputable best friend, Jin-tae (Jin Goo). At her desperate urging, her son struggles to remember more details of the night in question; unfortunately, he also dredges up far earlier memories that are like a knife through Mother’s heart.

The elements of the story resemble a subplot in Bong’s acclaimed 2003 “Memories of Murder,” which was told from the point of view of the homicide investigators. The change in focus makes “Mother” an even more intense work. Bong conceived the story specifically for actress Kim, who was best known for playing doting mothers on TV. Mother is certainly doting, but, with the pressure of defending her son, this quality quickly turns into obsession, ruthlessness and a series of increasing transgressions of her own.

Bong’s technique grows more assured with each film. His widescreen compositions are so striking that simple static shots often draw chuckles -- e.g., the characters seeming dwarfed by their surroundings as Do-joon urinates on a wall while drinking broth from a bowl held by Mother. Do-joon is little more than a factory for converting liquid.

The easy comparison here is to Hitchcock, but Bong moves at a slower pace, more like Claude Chabrol. And, like both of those forebears, Bong certainly knows how to generate suspense: The very first shot after the credits shows Mother chopping herbs with a hinged guillotine cutter, her fingers moving closer and closer to the blade, even as she gets more and more distracted trying to keep an eye on Do-joon. We cringe waiting for the wounding slice.

The scene is like a microcosm of things to come. Will Mother’s concern lead to more blood being spilled by the end? Will she damage herself in the process? Is there any doubt?

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From Korea, A Thriller Hitchcock Would Admire

Mark Jenkins

Mother Knows Best: Kim Hye-ja plays the unnamed protagonist in this murder mystery about a devoted mother whose simple-minded son is charged with murdering a teenage girl. Magnolia Pictures hide caption

Mother Knows Best: Kim Hye-ja plays the unnamed protagonist in this murder mystery about a devoted mother whose simple-minded son is charged with murdering a teenage girl.

Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Mystery
Running Time: 129 minutes

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'His Case Is Closed'

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'Actually, My Son Didn't Do It'

'This Is The Lawyer'

In Bong Joon-ho's flawlessly constructed new mystery, Mother, the title character uses maternal love to illuminate the shadowy case of her son, a murder suspect. But this pure light is all too effective, revealing things she'd rather not see.

The most versatile of today's internationally known Korean directors, Bong had his biggest success with The Host, a monster movie. Mother forgoes special effects and is more like a cross between the filmmaker's first two features: Like Memories of Murder, it's a tale of homicide in a rural backwater. Yet in tone it's closer to Barking Dogs Never Bite, which turned the tables on its protagonist with darkly comic glee.

The movie begins by introducing the unnamed mother, played by Kim Hye-ja, an actress known in Korea for more conventionally maternal roles. Then we meet her pride, and her trial: son Do-joon (Weon Bin), a 27-year-old with the concentration of a preschooler.

Poor but dignified, Mother makes a meager living from traditional herbal remedies and also does some unlicensed acupuncture on the side. One of her skills is slipping a needle into the proper site to banish troubling recollections. Do-joon doesn't need this technique, because he has precious little memory. But someone else eventually will.

Mother and son live on the margins of South Korea's affluent society, a status Bong establishes with the movie's first incident: Do-joon is grazed by a speeding Mercedes, whose driver doesn't even slow down. So Do-joon's hothead pal Jin-tae (Jin Gu) takes his slow-witted friend to the local country club to confront the hit-and-run driver. While Jin-tae threatens to pummel the upscale motorist and his friends, apparently harmless Do-joon forgets why they're on the club's golf course, distracted by a childlike pleasure.

The country-club incident sends Do-joon and Jin-tae to the police station, but the conflict is settled easily. Things get more complicated when a teenage schoolgirl's body is found. Based on circumstantial evidence, the sloppy and inexperienced local police arrest Do-joon. Convinced of her boy's innocence, his mother hires a lawyer who turns out to be useless and — like several of the movie's other characters — motivated principally by money. So she begins to probe the murder herself.

As a detective, Mother isn't very professional, but she is thorough. She learns that the victim was a notorious local figure with a demeaning nickname; she also tracks the girl's cell phone, which might identify a potential killer. But the investigation swerves in an unexpected direction when Mother locates a possible witness to the slaying. The relationship with her son also takes a surprise twist, as the man-boy suddenly remembers an incident from his childhood.

With formidable skill and twinkling perversity, Bong works a narrative sting that Hitchcock would have admired. Aside from the oddly jaunty music, Mother starts out dry and minimalist, with stark widescreen compositions that suggest its mode will be naturalistic. Then the absurdities begin to mount, and the ironies multiply.

A satire as a well as a murder mystery, the film depicts contemporary Koreans as mercenary and alienated. In the face of such social decay, holding the family together is elemental. So Mother must be right, even when she's very wrong.

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Mother — film review.

Maternal instinct exerts fearsome force in "Mother," when a woman finds that no one but herself can clear her son of murder. Bong Joon-ho's top opus zooms in on one character with smothering intensity to examine the primal quality of motherhood. At the same time, it is a superb murder mystery, with twists coming thick and fast yet always at the right moments.

By Maggie Lee

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Bottom Line: A tremendous human portrait and taut murder suspense.

More Cannes reviews

CANNES — Maternal instinct exerts fearsome force in “Mother,” when a woman finds that no one but herself can clear her son of murder. Bong Joon-ho’s top opus zooms in on one character with smothering intensity to examine the primal quality of motherhood. At the same time, it is a superb murder mystery, with twists coming thick and fast yet always at the right moments.

Hye-ja (Kim Hye-ja) runs a herbal apothecary, and performs unlicensed acupuncture to make ends meet. She is constantly on the look out for her son Do-joon (Won Bin), who easily gets in trouble because of his mentally challenged condition. When high school girl Ah-jung is found dead and dangling halfway from a rooftop, incriminating evidence points to Do-joon as the killer.

Neither the district police whom Hye-ja routinely grovels to, nor the lawyer whom Hye-ja must pay through the nose for, show any sympathy or patience to Do-joon’s case. Frustrated, Hye-ja decides to find the killer herself. Her biggest suspect is Do-joon’s hoodlum buddy Jin-tae. However, she soon learns that there is no one she can trust in her close-knit village.

This is expressed with a stylized film language that he forges with more confidence than ever before. Looming close-ups of Hye-ja stretched across the screen both mesmerize and unnerve. Other times, wide shots of endless fields or misty mountains frame her as a speck in the landscape — implying both her insignificance, and her affiliation with nature.

TV actress Kim Hye-ja, long-accustomed to playing overbearing Korean mothers, commands the screen, though she sometimes goes overboard with too many mannerisms in a larger-than-life performance. Won Bin exudes guileless charm as the dim-witted son, and is almost unrecognizable from his usual heartthrob image.

The film’s use of sound, from the ominous rustling of leaves to the menacing sounds of Hye-ja’s herb chopper, is more effective than any music score. The appearance of not more than two persons in most frames, and the stark palette of primary colors of doleful smoky blue and petulant rusty red create a sustained mood of claustrophobia and discomfort.

Festival de Cannes — Un Certain Regard

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Mother movie review & analysis Korean (2009)

Wrtier: Bong Joon Ho , Eun-kyo Park ,

Stars: Hye-ja Kim Won Bin Jin Goo

Summary: A mother desperately searches for the killer who framed her son for a girl's horrific murder.

“Mother” a South Korean movie released in 2009 and directed by Bong Joon Ho is in many ways a return to the director’s specialty genre, one in which he’s proved to be successful. Joon Ho’s debut for the international cinema was his masterpiece “Memories of Murder” released in 2003. However, after this impressive beginning, what followed was a derailment in his career resulting from his learning toward sci-fi genres. “Mother” in many ways, was a return to his old ways. For those following the director’s works, some of the scenes in the movie enjoy a stark resemblance to his earlier works. For instance, the reenactment of the murder scene by the police and the crowd which gathers to watch the suspect is awfully similar to Joon Ho’s previous work. If we take the film’s Yoon Do-joon to be similar to the mentally disabled kid in the director’s previous work, “ Memories of Murder ” then the consequent comparison between the mother of the 2009 movie and the father of 2003 follow logically. The father-son relationship in 2003 was profoundly moving and emotional, and it seems that the director has aimed to create a sequence of the same type of relationship. Joon Ho’s “mother” reassures his viewers of expertise and talent in creating suspenseful mystery movies with complex storylines; in other words, his previous masterpiece was not a mere play of luck. “elaborate and deceptive” is how Roger Rebert describes “mother”, he judges the film to be labyrinthine and deceptive and filled with thrill and excitement. Some film critics even go further in praise of “mother” and compare the movie with Hitchcock’s “psycho.”

mother korean movie Kim Hye-ja character

Like many of his other works, Joon Ho has tried a mix of genres in his “mother.” Bryan Orendorff points out, and rightfully so, Joon Ho’s cinematic signature, that he’s not afraid of breaking the rules and mixing different genres. The director’s “host” is proof of such endeavors; there, Joon Ho mixes such genres as sci-fi and comedy. His “mother”, too, bears humor and comedy, albeit in a subtler degree, which is mostly present in the characters of Yoon Do-joon and Jin-tae.

Joon Ho’s transgression of conventions is not limited to genres, such risky, albeit creative freedom, is also evident in the cinematography and framework of the film too; an example of the former is the movie’s opening scene when the mother comes into the field and begins a sorrowful dance, the odd movement defy conventional cinematography, here the subject is not necessary in the center of the shot. Such flouting of virtual conventions is evident throughout the movie. Overall, it is concluded that “mother” defies conventions at both a virtual and narrative level, one that goes against our expectations that often come from formatted and uniform movies of the Hollywood cinema.

mother movie korean mother and son in prison meeting

The star of the movie and also the mother of the title is Hye-ja Kim. Although she is relatively unknown in the international scene, Joon Ho stated in one of his interviews that she is a very popular actress in South Korea and described her as the “mother of a nation.” The director went even further and claimed that Hye-ja Kim’s character inspired much of the screenplay, not vice versa. The actress’s motherly anxiety and worrying is clearly tangible. Despite the character’s few lines, her masterful expression of emotions and feelings proves to be moving for the viewer. Her impressive performance in the following scenes requires particular praise: when she goes to the police station to check on her son; when she sits beside the friends of the victim with a sincere heart to get some information about the case, or when she; or at the end of the movie when she faces the new suspect and says with tearful eyes ‘don’t you have parents?’.

It is quite interesting how in film’s beginning scene where the mother is dancing in a field carries such profound emotions, feelings that we, the viewer, expect from the mother of the title in the latter part of the movie, and it is truly impressive that an actress can convey all of these teaser emotions that we build only a two-hour long movie early in the film and as a previous. Later we come to experience each and every single emotion. Perpahs, one of the few setbacks of the film, is the weak characterization of the police officers. It is true that they occupy a short space in the movie, but still, it is big enough for the viewer to demand more knowledge over their feelings and past record. The fact that we know their torture method to be the SPECTACRA is not enough. Although Bong Joon Ho has delved into the historical record of his police officers in his “Memories of Murder”, the bridge between the two movies has not been built by the director.

won bin mother Yoon Do-joon police station

Another weak point of “Mother” is perhaps the non-existent subplot(s) in the movie. Aside from the main story which is that of Yoon Do-joon being accused of murder and his mother desperately trying to prove his innocence, there is no other secondary story or subplot. This sometimes leads to the mother’s protracted detective work to seem boring and dull to the viewer, making him lose interest in the work. It is very well possible that a deeper dive into Jin-tae’s life by the director could have proved another avenue for revitalizing the film’s dynamism. I imagine such a work wouldn’t have been a troublesome endeavor since we are already familiar with the character’s personal life to a good extent. We know that he’s in contact with the girl working in the Manhattan restaurant; on the other hand, we are also aware of the fact that the mentally disabled Yoon Do-joon was only shown a good-hearted welcome and reception by the same girl. So a love triangle could have easily filled this vacuum that is felt in the screenplay, but such a thing is not undertaken by the director, and no alternative is given either.

Mother character and Jin-tae at her home

Allow me to make a sincere confession without overstating anything. I want to say that I am deeply influenced by Bong Joon Ho’s works. What sets South Korean mystery movies from their American counterparts is how plausible and close their characters and stories are to those of real-life people. Roger Rebert states that Disney works often focus on 3-D “event” movies, comic hero stories, and franchises like “Pirates of the Caribbean.” It has essentially abandoned films about plausible human beings. He maintains that “mother” unfolds a real story that might happen to any real human being. Therefore, Rebert’s conclusion in this regard is that watching indie or un-American films is not a luxury but a necessity. I particularly enjoyed this observation by Roger Rebert and am in total agreement with his view.

Mother Korean movie ending explained:

Mother is now forced to coexist with a murderous son while also traveling and killing people herself. To forget her sufferings, she gives herself thigh acupuncture. The film ends.

Who is the killer in Mother Korean movie? Who killed the girl?

Karma Houdini: At the conclusion of the movie, Do-joon, the real killer, and his mother, who killed the only witness, manage to evade capture. Mama Bear: Even when it is proven that Do-joon is genuinely guilty, his mother would do anything it takes to save her son from being found guilty of killing Ah-jung.

Why is Mother 2009 Rated R?

Parents should be aware that Mother is a violent, coarse-language, and sexually explicit black comedy-drama that is produced in Korea.

Is Mother 2009 a good movie?

Critical reaction The movie has a 96% approval rating from 114 reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an overall rating of 7.88/10. So we can say it’s a good movie.

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3 responses to “mother movie review & analysis korean (2009)”.

A great examination of the bond between a mother and son with influences from Kurosawa (Rashomon) and Lee Chang-dong (Burning, Poetry). It’s a brilliant and powerful frame that pits Mother against/against nature’s overwhelming force. The actor that plays Mother is incredibly gifted. Even though I adored Parasite, I believe I liked this more. Bong does a fantastic job connecting maternal love with societal inequity.

Mother is quite dark, yet she’s also hilarious and caring. A carefully considered story that is bewilderingly unexpected. a gripping thriller, a murder mystery, and a family drama. Better for not fitting into traditional genre categories.

Many critics consider Bong Joon Ho’s works to be psychologically very similar to Hitchcock’s films. However, this Korean director has no qualms about showing the ugliness, and maybe it’s better to say a view of real life. This feature can be well seen in the rainy night sequence in the film Parasite. When the Kim family’s humble house is filled with water due to heavy rain or earlier in the sequence where the family members go to the toilet to find better internet.

Madeo / Mother (2009) : Korean Movie Ending Explained

Mother (2009), or Madeo, is a Korean film directed by Bong Joon-ho set in the backdrop of a small town. His other films include Snowpiercer and the very popular, Parasite . The story is centered around Do-joon who’s a 20 something year old guy but is mentally challenged. He lives with his mother. His mother’s name is never mentioned, she’s just … mother. Do-joon hangs out with Jin-tae, a good-for-nothing vagrant. Two of them get into plenty of trouble with the cops. One morning, a school girl is found murdered and hung out to dry like a wet cloth. The cops are unable to comprehend the heinous crime. Unfortunately for Do-joon, a golf ball he steals is found at the scene of the crime. The cops arrest him and is accused for the murder. His mother knows how childlike her son is and there is no way he could have committed murder. What follows is the journey of his mother’s struggle to collect evidence around the murder and to try and prove that her son is innocent. The film has moments that are a tad bit slow. It makes you wonder if you are going to regret watching the whole movie. No, you are not. It’s a good film and has a good conclusion. There is more to the plot than meets the eye. Here’s the plot and ending of the Korean movie Mother explained; spoilers ahead.

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Mother (2009): Plot Explained

Mother has had a tough life trying to raise her mentally challenged son. While her son is otherwise not very sharp, he has a sharp memory. But he has a confused mind and can rarely access these memories. An example of this is when Jin-tae and Do-joon assault the golfers, it is Jin-tae who busts the car. Jin-tae takes advantage of Do-joon by stating that Do-joon busted the car. Because of his confused mind Do-joon accepts this too.

Another instance of this is when Do-joon is 5 years old. His mother tries to kill him with rat poison. This is retained in his memory and he ends up accessing it randomly. Anyways, getting back to the plot. Do-joon is in jail and his mother is uncovering what might have happened. She eventually locates the phone of the murdered girl, Ah-jung. It is revealed that the girl sleeps around quite a bit and afterwards takes a picture of the guys too (without them knowing).

Mother figures that there is a friend of Ah-jung who knows how to make phones take pictures without making the snap sound. “The pervert phone”. This is how Ah-jung was taking all those pictures. Two guys are trying to get to the phone by beating up the friend for answers. With the help of Jin-tae, mother captures the two guys and interrogates them. They reveal the secret of the rice cake girl. Ah-jung was known to sleep with guys who offered her rice cakes. Why? Don’t ask. Some people are just messed up I suppose. Ah-jung otherwise seems normal. She doesn’t have any reason to be doing this. But she does.

Mother locates her phone and goes through the pictures in them and shows it to Do-joon. He happens to recollect an old man in the list. He sees this old man in the abandoned house the night of the murder. Mother locates the old man (a garbage collector). She asks him about that night.

Mother (2009): The Korean Film’s Ending Explained

What actually happened who murdered the girl.

The old man doesn’t know that he’s talking to Do-joon’s mother and tells her the story of that night.

This is the homeless man’s version.

The critical moment in the Mother (2009) is when Do-joon follows the schoolgirl. The homeless garbage collector is already in the abandoned house to spend the night. He means no harm. The girl runs and hides in the abandoned house. To scare Do-joon she throws a rock at him from the shadows, she misses. Do-joon throws the rock back into the shadows. For his luck, he doesn’t miss. The the rock lands on the girl’s face. She starts bleeding out. Do-joon takes her to the terrace and leaves her there. This version can be trusted because the homeless man has no reason to kill the girl.

However what he doesn’t tell mother is that it was not coincidence that the girl happened to come to the same abandoned house that he decided to camp for the night. The fact that his picture was on the phone means that she had slept with him before and they had planned to meet in the abandoned house again. There is a scene which shows him collecting rice in a bag. That’s the payment to the girl Ah-jung. As strange as this bit is, that is what she wanted as payment rice cakes or rice. The old guy doesn’t seem to be responsible for her death however.

This leaves mother in agony. She thinks her son is innocent. But this information clearly proves otherwise. To stop the old man from going to the cops with this information, she kills him and sets the place on fire.

Ah-jung is shown to have nosebleeds at times. The cops eventually locate her boyfriend and they find traces of her blood on one of his shirts. Looks like this is from her nosebleeds. But it leads the cops to believe that the boyfriend was responsible for her death and they arrest him. Do-joon is set free. Later when Do-joon visits the burnt site, he finds his mom’s acupressure needle kit. He picks this up and returns it to his mom. Fires he know his mom has missed the old man? Maybe, but he doesn’t seem to care.

Do-joon seems to have no recollection of the girl’s murder but he mentions that whoever did do this perhaps did it with the intention to help her. Do-joon mentions that perhaps leaving the body like that on top would help someone notice her and help her. Does this mean he’s remembering what he did? May be not. He’s still a confused mind and doesn’t realize that he’s killed her, but looks like he does hang her up like that for the reason he mentions. Mother has to now live with a murderer son and the fact that she too is a murderer and goes away on a trip. She performs acupuncture on herself in the thigh to forget her pains. The film ends.

Barry is a technologist who helps start-ups build successful products. His love for movies and production has led him to write his well-received film explanation and analysis articles to help everyone appreciate the films better. He’s regularly available for a chat conversation on his website and consults on storyboarding from time to time. Click to browse all his film articles

The Odd Apple

Mother / madeo (2009 korean film) ending explained.

This post includes a brief plot summary, an explanation about the ending of the film Mother / Madeo (2009) and a character analysis of Do-joon’s mother. Who was the real killer? Beware of spoilers.

Directed by Bong Joon-ho, the 2009 South-korean drama stars Kim Hye-ja as Mother and Won Bin as Yoon Do-joon .

Mother / Madeo (2009) – Plot Summary

An almost hit and run incident prompts Do-joon and Jin-tae to hop on a taxi and chase the driver. They track him at the golf course. First, they vandalize the car. Then, they proceed to attack the driver and the other passengers. The police arrests them. Jin-tae was the one responsible for the damage but Do-joon ends up getting the blame.

One night, a drunk Do-joon follows a high school named Ah-jung into an abandoned building. She disappears and Do-joon walks away. The next day, the same girl appears dead at a rooftop. The police arrests Do-joon based on circumstantial evidence. Then, they coerce Do-joon to sign a confession, he’s convicted and sent to prison.

Do-joon’s mother, the only one that believes in his son’s innocence goes on relentless search for the true killer. She starts researching Ah-jung’s background. During her personal investigation, she hears rumours that Ah-jung was a promiscuous girl, who frequently exchanged sex for rice cakes. Meanwhile, she stops at the prison to visit her son. During the visit, Do-joon confronts his mother. Apparently, she tried to poison him when he was only five. She doesn’t deny it and offers to give him acupuncture to help him forget the pain. He refuses and tells her not to see him again.

One day, Do-joon’s mother goes through some old photos and decides to have a particular one retouched. At a local camera shop, she learns from the owner that Ah-jung used to have frequent nosebleeds. Moreover, she recalls that Ah-jung often came to the shop with a friend. Mother tracks the friend and starts asking for some questions. Meanwhile, the friend disappears. Two boys took her to an alley to intimidate her. They want Ah-jung’s phone. However, a worker stops the boys and threatens them to leave the girl alone.

With the help of Jin-tae, they track the two boys down. He beats them to get some answers about Ah-jung. Apparently, Ah-jung took a picture of everyone that she ever had sex with. Having said that, whoever possessed the phone would now have immense power to blackmail the individuals on that list.

Do-joon remembers seeing an old man at the night of the murder. He appears in Ah-jung’s phone. The man is the junk collector, Do-joon’s mother bought an umbrella from him. This information prompts Do-joon’s mother to go his house, under the pretext of selling him acupuncture services.

The junk collector confesses what he saw during the night of Ah-jung’s murder. The man saw Do-joon throw a giant rock at Ah-jung, which hit her head, killing her at the spot. Then, he witnesses Do-joon dragging her dead body to the rooftop. After learning that the police was going to revisit the case, the man decides to report what he saw that night. In extreme fear and denial, Do-joon’s mother kills the man and burns his house down.

Later on, the police informs Do-joon’s mother that they reopened the case and that they found the real killer: Ah-jung’s rumoured boyfriend “crazy JP”. The police found Ah-jung’s blood stains on his shirt. Do-joon’s mother goes to visit crazy JP and starts crying, she knows that an innocent is going to prison for a crime he did not commit.

Do-joon is released and Jin-tae is there to pick him up. During the ride, they visit the junk collector’s burned house. During dinner with his mother, he said that whoever dragged Ah-jung to the rooftop, did it to alert others to help her.

Right when Do-joon’s mother was about to leave for a trip, Do-joon returns her acupuncture kit (the one she lost in the fire). He tells her to be more careful and she leaves the bus station horrified. On the bus, she performs acupuncture on herself and dances with the other passengers.

Mother / Madeo (2009) – Ending Explained

Who was the real killer? Who killed Ah-jung? Do-joon, the junk collector or crazy JP? In the end, it’s very clear that Do-joon was the real killer. However, he has frequent memory lapses that’s why he didn’t remember.

The junk collector had no reason to lie to Do-joon’s mother because, he didn’t even know who she was. In addition, “crazy” JP was also innocent. The blood stains came from Ah-jung’s nosebleeds. He didn’t rape Ah-jung nor killed her, that’s why Do-joon’s mother was crying. She knew that JP was going to prison for a crime he did not commit.

What does the ending mean? Why did Do-joon’s mother go on a trip? She probably had a heavy conscience: she killed a witness (the junk collector) and let an innocent go to prison. Moreover, she also wanted to get away from her “precious boy”, now that she knows he’s a murderer. After Do-joon’s release from prison, she started to treat him a bit differently, more like a stranger.

During that final bed scene, Do-joon’s mother couldn’t even close her eyes, hinting that she’s somehow afraid of Do-joon. In addition, when Do-joon returns her acupuncture kit, she ran as fast as she could away from him. That’s a very different mother from what we saw in the beginning of the film. In order to forget all the bad memories, she applies acupuncture to herself on the bus and dances with the other passengers.

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Mother [DVD] (2009)

Do-joon’s Mother – Character Analysis

Do-joon’s mother is a complicated human being. She wants the world to perceive her as a great mother, though she’s not. In the first half of film, the director is telling the story through the mother’s eyes. That’s why (in the beginning) we don’t see Do-joon killing Ah-jung, because she believed that he was innocent.

Throughout the story, we find out why Do-joon is the way he is. When he was five, his mother tried to poison him. She was planning to kill him and then, kill herself. However, the poison wasn’t strong enough. Although it’s not stated in the film, the poisoning probably had an effect on Do-joon’s mental development.

So there’s a reason, why Do-joon’s mother treats him so well. She doesn’t do it out of pity, because he’s mentally disable. No. She pampers him, because it was her who caused his disability. That’s the ugly truth. In addition, Do-joon is not as oblivious as he looks. Though he’s not able to recollect certain memories, he remembers everything. And Do-joon hasn’t forgiven his mother for trying to kill him when he was five years old.

By the way, when she killed the junk collector, she wasn’t trying to protect Do-joon and his image. You see, she wants us to believe that Do-joon is a good boy, that she raised him right. Saying that he’s not, it’s the same as saying that she was a bad mother (he’s like an extension of her).

Basically, Do-joon’s mother is not very good at owning her mistakes. When life got hard, she tried to kill his son. In addition, she tried to block his memories through acupuncture. When the junk collector was about to call the police to report Do-joon as the killer, she kills him. On top of that, she rather let an innocent go to prison, than acknowledging that her son was the real killer. You see, she’s not a very good parent.

Oh, in order to forget everything, what does she do? She goes on a trip to forget all her bad memories. That’s why she never learns.

Final Thoughts

Mother / Madeo is a sad story, told in a very funny way. Moreover, the film plays a lot with our own personal biases. Because Do-joon is mentally disable, as viewers, we don’t want to believe that he’s the one who killed Ah-jung. In a way, we are all like “Mother” . Even when the junk collector tells us straight to the face, what happened during that fateful night, we still don’t want to believe him. Why? Because he’s not as innocent looking as Do-joon. Superficial? Yes, but also primal.

What about Ah-jung? Did she deserve to die? Of course not, but she shouldn’t have called Do-joon a “retard”. Apparently, that’s the word that triggers something really nasty in Do-joon. Once again as viewers, we are completely blind-sided by Ah-jung’ past. Not in a million years, we would have guessed that this seemly innocent high school girl had such a promiscuous past. Almost everybody in town was taking advantage of her. So who has a more sobby story: Ah-jung or Do-joon? Maybe, Ah-jung. She had nobody to take care of her, unlike Do-joon.

Now, let’s talk about Do-joon’s mother. She starts as a poor lady on a relentless search to find the killer behind a young girl’s murder, then she spirals into a crazy lady that’s trying to kill everyone that knows the real truth. She definitely has one the best character arcs in the story.

The whole story really explores personal biases and hidden desires. For instance, we see Do-joon as an asexual human being, mostly because of his mental disability. However, he’s a man too, with desires and all. That’s why he was stalking Ah-jung during that fateful night.

Overall, Mother is storytelling at its best. The director really flipped the script with that major plot twist. He really fooled the audience, but in a good way.

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The Mother Reviews Are Here, And Critics Are Saying The Same Thing About Jennifer Lopez’s Netflix Action Movie

Just in time for Mother's Day.

Jennifer Lopez hit the big screen with two movies last year — the adorable rom-com Marry Me and then the romantic action flick Shotgun Wedding . This year it appears she’s leaving the romance to her personal life, with her new Netflix movie The Mother bringing straight action. JLo plays the titular character, a former assassin who comes out of retirement to protect her estranged daughter. The reviews are in, so let’s see if this is one you’ll be firing up with a bag of microwave popcorn for this Mother’s Day weekend.

Along with Jennifer Lopez , the cast of The Mother includes Lucy Paez in her first major role as daughter Zoe, and Joseph Fiennes and Gael Garcia Bernal as ex-boyfriends/arms dealers. The Hustlers actress was looking great in the first looks for the female-driven action movie, and the trailer promises we’ll get to see JLo kicking plenty of ass . Let’s get to the critics, starting with CinemaBlend’s review of The Mother . Our own Mike Reyes rates the movie just 2 stars out of 5, saying Lopez proves herself as an action lead, but the film never figures out how to mesh that with the emotional premise. He continues:

Seeing as Jennifer Lopez is the mother that gives the film its title, the failure to build her character causes a collapse on shaky foundation on which this movie is built. The action is too tame to raise your heartrate, and the drama is so basic that you can almost always guess what the next line’s going to be. Predictability doesn’t always kill a movie, but if you don’t add a little bit more to the pot to really flavor what’s being served, the result isn’t going to taste good.

Courtney Howard of AV Club grades The Mother a C+, agreeing with the above review that Jennifer Lopez delivers with both her powerful punches and empowering emotions, but the film overall doesn’t examine, augment or challenge the genre’s familiar formulas. The review states:

The film’s fabric experiences a few frays that lead to a sloppy unraveling. Around the midpoint, characters slowly stop behaving as humans, and behave more like puppets functioning on behalf of the story. It also suffers from a villain problem where both of the evil exes are barely one dimensional, neither oppressive nor genuinely menacing due to Fiennes’ and Bernal’s lack of meaty material. Screenwriter contrivances guide the second-to-third-act transition. The Mother’s considerable abilities begin to slip for baffling reasons that run counter to her established character—early on she can mend a bullet wound with superglue, but later she can’t stitch a bite wound.

Nadia Dalimonte of Next Best Picture rates the movie 6 out of 10, saying that while JLo brings a refreshing perspective on female perseverance, the film around her is flawed, with a screenplay that rushes storylines and action sequences that are edited so heavily they’re hard to follow. The critic says:

The film reaches more interesting heights in its second half when it focuses on how the mother-daughter dynamic is shaped by Lopez’s character resurfacing in Zoe’s life. The screenplay gives the two characters a bit of time to communicate some of the things they had imagined wanting to say to each other. ... Despite the promise of the film’s second half and the entertainment value of watching Lopez fight through every imaginable obstacle to protect her daughter, the film feels unexplored to its full potential. Large gaps in the story leave more questions than answers, for instance, regarding why the threats posed to these characters operate on such relentless levels.

Owen Gleiberman of Variety calls The Mother “action filmmaking made basic,” but he seems to fall in line with the other critics when it comes to the leading actress, who Gleiberman says deserves better. In terms of JLo, he continues:

She shoots, she stabs, she chops windpipes, she motorcycles down stone stairways in one of those chase-through-an-ancient-city action scenes (this one takes place in Havana), she tortures a man by punching him with a fist wrapped in barbed wire, she grimaces in muscle-torn agony but mostly looks frozen and implacable. Even more important, she puts her own spin on those familiar motions.

Peter Travers of GMA Culture says Jennifer Lopez (and all of the mothers out there) deserve better, given this movie’s dopey dialogue and nonsensical plot. The critic points out that watching JLo kick ass is absolutely the main draw, saying:

It's hard to find any reason why these former lovers of Mother, whose taste in men needs a serious rethink, would raise armies to destroy her other than Lopez is a star and it's fun to watch director Niki Caro (Whale Rider, Mulan) set up this Latina powerhouse to mow down the bad guys like sitting ducks of macho ineptitude.

The critics overall seem disappointed in The Mother , but it sounds like Jennifer Lopez’s performance might make this worth watching anyway. The movie is available now for those with a Netflix subscription , so feel free to check it out for yourself! You can also take a look at our 2023 Movie Release Schedule to see what’s coming to theaters soon.

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Heidi Venable is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend, a mom of two and a hard-core '90s kid. She started freelancing for CinemaBlend in 2020 and officially came on board in 2021. Her job entails writing news stories and TV reactions from some of her favorite prime-time shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Bachelor. She graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a degree in Journalism and worked in the newspaper industry for almost two decades in multiple roles including Sports Editor, Page Designer and Online Editor. Unprovoked, will quote Friends in any situation. Thrives on New Orleans Saints football, The West Wing and taco trucks.

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Over the last few years, there has been a trend of opulent destination wedding romantic comedies. Two years ago, there was " Ticket to Paradise " starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts and " Shotgun Wedding " starring Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel . Most recently, " Anyone But You ," starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell , got rave reviews and made bank at the box office. So it was about time a watered-down Netflix version of this new sub-genre emerged. Enter "Mother of the Bride" starring Brooke Shields , Miranda Cosgrove , and Benjamin Bratt . Like a magpie, it takes bits and pieces from better films and cobbles it together with some paper-thin characters into something that is a movie in definition only.

I am normally a fan of the films Brad Krevoy and Steve Stabler (working under the moniker Motion Picture Corporation of America) have made with Netflix. I've rewatched both "The Knight Before Christmas" and "A Castle for Christmas" (also starring Shields) more times than I care to share. I've even written positively about the Lindsay Lohan vehicles " Falling for Christmas " and " Irish Wish " on this very website. Director Mark Waters has a pretty strong track record in the genre, helming star-studded films like the original "Mean Girls," "Freaky Friday," and " Just Like Heaven ." Even his less-than-stellar films like "Head over Heels" and " Ghosts of Girlfriends Past ” are, I confess, guilty pleasures.

So what exactly went so wrong here? The hackneyed script from Robin Bernheim, best known for writing and producing the Netflix "The Princess Switch" trilogy, strands the film's cast in shallow waters.

Shields is game as Lana, a world-renowned geneticist nursing some decades-old romantic wounds. This vein of slightly neurotic, screwball comedy is something she's honed since her "Suddenly Susan" sitcom days. Lana goes into a full-on tailspin when she discovers her daughter Emma (an incredibly bland Miranda Cosgrove) is marrying RJ ( Sean Teale ), who turns out to be the son of Will (Benjamin Bratt, sadly sapped of his trademark charm), the man who broke her heart in college. Rachael Harris basically plays herself as Lana's perpetually horny cougar sister, who at one point describes a beefed-up Chad Michael Murray as a "Hemsworth hottie." Michael McDonald and Wilson Cruz play the token happily married gay couple, whose entire raison d'être is to be sassy and supply the audience with exposition.

Emma is a lifestyle influencer who has inked a six-figure deal with a mega-corp to which she has essentially sold her wedding as a product to promote their resort in Phuket, Thailand. While there is endless chatter about Instagram photo shoots and designer dress fittings, the film doesn't explore the economics in play here. What could have been a sharp satire about the commodification of our lives, down to those days that are supposed to be the most sacred, becomes a limp lesson in work-life balance. This theme is so threadbare it makes "27 Dresses" seem downright didactic in comparison. The only cast member who seems to be on this satirical page is Tasneem Roc as a singularly unhinged brand manager named Camala, who mercifully supplies the film with its few paltry laughs.

You may have noticed I have not even mentioned the groom yet. That is because he may as well not even be in the film. His character is so underdeveloped, he feels like those Instagram boyfriends who take pictures of their influencer girlfriends but whose face you never see. Only he doesn't even do that! Vague dialogue in the beginning explains his job and how he and Emma met and fell in love. Still, it's so inconsequential by the time you get to the actual wedding you not only don't remember who's getting married, you don't even know why they're getting married. What do they like about each other? How does he make money? Why does his dad give them a multi-millionaire dollar condo in Tribeca if they met and fell in love while working together in London? The script would have to include something other than stock characters to answer any of those questions.

Maybe a film this shallow is exactly what this sub-genre deserves, considering how blissfully unaware any of these films (even the ones I enjoy) tend to be about the obscene privilege and wealth that someone must have to attend a destination wedding in the first place. Maybe, in some twisted way, the hollowness of this film is its own kind of criticism.

It’s a shame to see someone as talented as Shields end up in drivel like this. Ultimately, “Mother of the Bride” is the nadir for almost everyone involved.

Marya E. Gates

Marya E. Gates is a freelance film and culture writer based in Los Angeles and Chicago. She studied Comparative Literature at U.C. Berkeley, and also has an overpriced and underused MFA in Film Production. Other bylines include Moviefone, The Playlist, Crooked Marquee, Nerdist, and Vulture.

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Reviews aren’t loving “Mother of the Bride,” but is it a good watch?

D irected by Mark Waters, Mother of the Bride stars Brooke Shields, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, and Sean Teale in the lead roles. IMDb shows 4.9 ratings out of 10 with 72 total ratings for the film.

Let’s see how this rom-com has been doing since it was released on May 9, 2024, on Netflix.

Mother of the Bride Reviews, A Mixed Bag

The New York Times describes the film as a “tired romantic comedy,” whereas The Guardian gave mixed reviews with two stars out of five. Benjamin Lee from The Guardian also said that the film is slightly cut above just how bad these things can get, but not enough edge.

The film has received mixed reviews, and the director, Mark Waters, has been said to miss out on his magical touch. He is popular for his works, including Ghosts of Girlfriends Post, Mr. Popper’s Penguins, Mean Girls, Freaky Friday, Vampire Academy, and more. Mother of the Bride is written by Robin Bernheim.

The film’s cast members include Miranda Cosgrove in one of the leading roles, Emma. Brooke Shields plays Lana, whereas Benjamin Bratt plays Will. The film received 24% on Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews.

Metacritic has given a score of 38 out of 100, which includes 8 critics reviews. Hence, one can say that the reviews for the film are generally unfavorable. Common Sense Media’s Jennifer Green gave a three out of five score to the movie Mother of the Bride.

Mother of the Bride, is it Worth a Watch?

As the name suggests, the film revolves around the bride and her mother. Emma, played by Miranda Cosgrove, the daughter, returns with the surprising news that she is getting married. Her mother, Lana, played by Brooke Shields, comes across her college-time love at her daughter’s wedding in Thailand.

It would be exciting to see how two exes, who met for almost two decades of their lives, and their son or daughter want to marry each other without knowing any of their parents’ college and past lives. Emma has no idea that her future-father-in-law used to be her mother’s love and that he broke her heart years ago.

Lana wants the best for her daughter, but what will she do when she finds out that the groom’s father used to be her college romance? How will she explain all these things and complications to her daughter? If you haven’t watched Mother of the Bride yet, stream it on Netflix now!

College flames reunite at a daughter’s wedding! “Mother of the Bride”

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Mother of the Bride review – Brooke Shields leads middling Netflix mush

More background fluff from the streamer, this time from Mean Girls director Mark Waters with a splashy Thailand location

D espite experience mostly insisting caution, certain markers still allow one to naively daydream that a new Netflix comedy might be worth more than a background half-watch while ironing. A big name, an experienced writer, a genuine studio-trained director, some substantive source material, anything to allow us to glide on the brief hope that we’re not in hammy, Hallmark-adjacent territory.

This thinking sometimes works – 2019’s Let It Snow was based on a solid YA novel, 2021’s Moxie had Amy Poehler in front of and behind the camera, this year’s Players benefited from the considerable charm of star Gina Rodriguez – but it too often makes precious little difference. For Mother’s Day in the US, the streamer has Mother of the Bride, a breezy comedy that arrives from director Mark Waters, whose indie days included The House of Yes and whose studio days included Mean Girls, Freaky Friday and Bad Santa 2, enough to give one a brief moment of optimism. But after the tudum has been and gone, it’s clear that we’re being spoon-fed more of the same unremarkable competence, sugar with no salt, calories with no nutrition.

The clue was less in who was behind the camera and more in who was behind the laptop, the script written by Robin Bernheim, a Hallmark and Lifetime alum whose Netflix work includes The Princess Switch movies. The writing is as pat and perfunctory as one would expect from such a résumé, rooted in sitcom cliche (hands on hips when angry – check), never able to sneak its way out of the easily expected.

The mother of the title is of the doting, borderline obsessive kind, fixated on her daughter’s future and terrified of what might happen if it doesn’t fall in line with what she’s planned out in her head. Mother Lana is played by Brooke Shields, extending her relationship with the streamer after leading a ho-hum Christmas movie back in 2021, and daughter Emma is the iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove.

When Emma announces her surprise engagement, Lana is horrified, but the full horror arrives when she heads to Phuket for the wedding and meets the father of the groom, her college ex Will (a mostly shirtless Benjamin Bratt), a guy who left her out of the blue never to return. Despite being an extremely accomplished career woman who manages an entire laboratory (this might be the first ever romcom to use the phrase “tumorigenic mechanisms”), she of course turns into a stuttering buffoon in front of both her ex and a handsome doctor, played by a mostly shirtless Chad Michael Murray, also at the resort (she really does say the perennial line “I’ve got underwear older than him”).

It’s partly an older-than-usual love triangle comedy, partly a mother-daughter story about an overly attached empty nester and partly a study of men keeping their abs into their 50s (Wilson Cruz as Bratt’s brother is also with a six-pack and without a shirt), a combination that should tick enough boxes for some. Shields and Bratt are at least pros relative to the material, which allows them to makes the most of Bernheim’s relentlessly trite dialogue, their potentially more poignant what-if dynamic often vaguely threatening to move us.

Cosgrove is a little trapped in her overemphatic Nickelodeon mode (a scene of her using a laptop will surely make meme-lovers happy), but she’s also lumped with the script’s eye-rolling attempt to stay relevant, playing an influencer whose sponcon wedding is being used as a way to boost followers. Lessons about family and forgiveness are ultimately far less persuasive than the scenery, the boost of an on-location shoot that might not quite rival 2022’s extremely adjacent Clooney/Roberts confection Ticket to Paradise (one set piece is litigiously similar), but it adds a gloss that’s otherwise missing from the point-and-shoot workmanship of it all.

It’s a slight cut above just how very bad these things can get , but not enough to edge it toward something that would deserve your full attention. So errand away, Mother of the Bride will be just fine playing in the background.

Mother of the Bride is out now on Netflix

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Mother Of The Bride Soundtrack Guide: Every Song & When They Play

Brooke shields' new netflix movie breaks a disappointing rotten tomatoes score streak after 48 years, chad michael murray’s new netflix movie is a subtle follow-up to his 21-year-old lindsay lohan comedy.

Mother of the Bride is a romantic comedy full of tropes, but it is also sweet and funny enough to work.
A stellar cast, led by Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt, shines in this lighthearted summer flick.
The film balances silliness and sincerity, offering an easy, breezy, enjoyable watch.

A young woman living abroad gets engaged and surprises her mother with the news that she is getting married in a month — a destination wedding in Phuket, Thailand. Unbeknownst to both, the bride's mother runs into her ex, and shenanigans ensue. Off the cuff, you would think this is the premise of Julia Roberts and George Clooney's Ticket to Paradise . But no, the always amusing, same movie/different font curse strikes again with Netflix's latest romantic comedy, Mother of The Bride , starring Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt.

Lana’s daughter Emma returns from abroad and drops a bombshell: she's getting married. In Thailand. In a month! Things only get worse when Lana learns that the man who captured Emma's heart is the son of the man who broke hers years ago.

Brooke Shields & Benjamin Bratt shine in their roles
The story can be fun and even sincere
Chad Michael Murray is miscast
There are too-silly moments and a concept the film barely explores

After starring in Netflix's A Castle For Christmas (a better movie than this one), opposite the always dashing Cary Elwes, Shields is back in the seasonally appropriate Mother of the Bride . Do you want to get into the beachy vibe, take a vacation to a beautiful exotic location and stare at some impressively good-looking people? Netflix has the thing for you. Want a lightweight story about a mother-daughter relationship sprinkled with the trope of the good old-fashioned college romance that never flamed out? Then Mother of the Bride is just what you need.

Mother Of The Bride Is All Fluff

But it's still a fun time.

Mother of the Bride is riddled with tropes and archetypes, but somehow screenwriter Robin Berheim — who's behind such hits as When Calls The Heart , all three The Princess Switch movies , and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding — and director Mark Waters, who gave us Hall of Famers , Freaky Friday , Mean Girls and He's All That , manage to make something that is just sweet and funny enough that what usually wouldn't work does.

The key is in the film's pacing; there is just enough of the wedding subplot to anchor the mother-daughter arc. iCarly 's Miranda Cosgrove takes on that task with considerable ease, the unexpected reunion between the mother of the bride and the father of the groom is well managed (yes, their kids are the ones getting married and yes, you know how this ends already), and the filler featuring their friend group and a potential young fling for Shields' character are sprinkled throughout in just the right portions.

While the film isn't something I will eagerly watch repeatedly, it's a good time, bringing the right balance of silly and fun.

Mother of the Bride's success rests on the filmmakers' abilities to not oversell anything and trust that the collective charisma of the assembled cast will do what it needs to do — and it does, though a flimsy script and one major miscast can be distracting.

A Fantastic Cast Shines In A Quietly Amusing Summer Flick

Mother of the bride's strength lies in its actors.

Mother of the Bride's cast is quite impressive, though I highly doubt the likes of Brooke Shields, Benjamin Bratt, Chad Michael Murray, Rachael Harris, Wilson Cruz, and Michael McDonald would give up a chance to have a vacation and do some light acting work in Thailand. Cosgrove and Sean Teale play nothing-burger characters; they are just there to be the catalyst for the central romance but do enough to not feel like a nuisance when they are the focus of a scene.

Cruz and McDonald are the kind of actors you are just happy to see, although McDonald acts as though he walked through the set of Halloween Kills and into Mother of the Bride without breaking character, he is still fun to watch. Cruz is always a joy, and he shines as someone who is meant to exude good vibes only. Harris, as Shields' onscreen best friend, is comically and constantly nursing a drink in her hand, and she offers that I-am-the-mischievous-friend energy here that just feels right for a story about unexpected reunions.

Shields and Bratt are the dynamic duo I never knew I needed. Their chemistry is off the charts, but their most important contributions are their heartfelt performances.

The one glaring outlier in this ensemble is Murray. Although he was considered a heartthrob for some time, his presence in Mother of the Bride feels off. Also, the gag of Shields playing a woman who attracts a man half her age does not work when there is a mere 16-year age gap (58 and 42 is respectable). Additionally, Murray's purpose in the story is not needed, especially when it takes away from the moments involving the former college friends reuniting, which are actually the film's highlight.

Speaking of highlights, Shields and Bratt are the dynamic duo I never knew I needed. Their chemistry is off the charts, but their most important contributions are their heartfelt performances. There are much fewer shenanigans at play than in the aforementioned Ticket to Paradise , but there is a genuine sincerity in exploring former college lovers reconnecting as they near their golden years.

Their dynamic is sweet, humorous, and authentic. Honestly, I could see many people enjoying a light sitcom with Mother of the Bride's cast, specifically Shields, Bratt, Harris, Cruz and McDonald. They make a formidable group of friends at a later stage in their lives who still engage with their youthful spirit.

Mother of the Bride

Mother of the bride strikes the right balance.

Mother of the Bride's story is silly, and it's made sillier by the fact that the couple to be wed inadvertently reunites their respective widowed parents with "the one that got away." The in-law/step-sibling situation here is hardly acknowledged, and while not an outright taboo, I couldn't help but laugh at it. While the film isn't something I will eagerly watch repeatedly, it's a good time, bringing the right balance of silly and fun. The idyllic location is beautifully shot, the story is light and breezy, the performances are equally so, with actors who are a joy to watch.

Mother of the Bride is now available to stream on Netflix.

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Watch Out for the Better Mother

between two small white mugs that say world’s best mom is a much taller one that says world’s number on best most amazing mom.

By Pamela Paul

Opinion Columnist

Sometimes, particularly in a public parenting setting, I will play the Better Mother. This is the mother who stands attentively outside a music audition, serenely listening to the notes emanating from within. She realizes the parent next to her said “Haydn,” not “Biden.” When her child emerges, the Better Mother isn’t sprawled on the floor playing Spelling Bee but instead greets him with encouraging commentary on the second movement. Also, she has brought a snack.

The Better Mother understands the lacrosse match (game?), cheering at appropriate moments in ways that hearten rather than humiliate. She knows the coach and chats amiably with team parents about various maneuverings on the field, nimbly expanding the conversation to school committees and after-school events. She did not bring a book.

The Better Mother ensures her kids have dress shoes that aren’t two sizes too small. She bakes. She reads official emails from school and camp from beginning to end. She knows which teachers your kids are supposed to get and whom to email if they aren’t gotten. She always brings a water bottle.

She is not the mother who didn’t know there was a school concert and has to sneak in as the lights go down. She knows which side of the field her child is playing on and possibly which position. She never texts at a stoplight with her child in the car.

She is empathic but not overbearing, affectionate but not treacly, wise but not smug, concerned but not anxious. She is the mother who knows danger but never checks in on a child for the wrong reason.

The Better Mother is, by definition, a better mother than I am.

She can be a total stranger spotted at the museum or a familiar face at a birthday party. Either way, she is a natural star in the play for which you haven’t quite memorized your lines.

Most mothers — and fathers — probably have a personal vision of their own competition, depending on one’s skill set or lack thereof. For me, it depends on the context, my mood, the child in question and the spectrum of parental figures in the vicinity, even sometimes on which TV show I last watched or what book I’m reading.

For a period, I decided that a better mother than I was Mary-Kay Wilmers , a former editor of The London Review of Books, a woman I’ve never met but read about in “ Love, Nina ,” a memoir by Nina Stibbe, who served as a nanny to Wilmers’s two precocious sons. Wilmers surrounded her children with clever British eminences like the playwright and novelist Alan Bennett and the biographer Claire Tomalin, as well as the critic John Lahr. Raised among brilliance, her boys became sharp wits themselves, biting and slightly wicked in their humor.

As I didn’t have any storied literary figures lighting up my dinner table, I simply let loose all my own most caustic comments, the kinds of uncharitable thoughts you usually reserve for like-minded adults. Alas, without elegant British companions, I was merely encouraging a rude sarcasm. My error was highlighted in the presence of another Better Mother, my friend Robin, whose children looked strangers in the eye upon meeting, shook hands firmly and managed civilized niceties.

No one is suggesting you have to be the Better Mother — merely that you can play her in public at your discretion. When you’re surrounded by a bunch of slacker parents or all-out bad moms or you’ve had a busy week and need an extra boost, you can simply slip on the role, ideally in public, for a Sunday afternoon. Yes, I am saying you can fake it.

Mother’s Day brings forth the Better Mothers in droves, when they accept all due adulation. On such occasions, regardless of what kind of mother you are in reality, you can damn well play the part.

And who’s going to be the wiser? The ones we think of as Better Mothers could be big fakers themselves, women who shove unevenly microwaved Trader Joe’s items before their kids for dinner and call it a night. They could be the ones who post about their teenagers on TikTok or slap their toddlers in Target when an iPhone camera isn’t in the vicinity.

Or they could just be like most parents, occasionally too tired to read aloud, not hugely interested in seventh-grade algebra or simply not in the mood to play.

It is possible the Better Mothers are no better than the rest of us. Only our children know the truth.

Source photograph by Red Sky/Getty Images.

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An earlier version of this article misstated the nationality of John Lahr. He is American, not British.

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Pamela Paul is an Opinion columnist at The Times, writing about culture, politics, ideas and the way we live now.

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