The Cool Mums of Them All
Little Miss Sunshine topped many a ‘Best Movies of 2006’ list and with
good reason – it is a film that manages to hit almost mark every with
audiences.
Like the best movies about family, it seamlessly moves between “extremes” in
emotion, from hilarity and sadness and back again.
About ‘ordinary folks’ battling personal demons,
Little Miss Sunshine possesses achingly honest dialogue, freakish yet
familiar characters, a road trip filled with hilarious accidents while poking
fun at the heart of America’s heartland - without being cruel or misanthropic.
It is entertaining, emotional and intimate and included one of the coolest
mother figures to grace recent film, Sheryl Hoover, played by Australian icon
Toni Colette.
Sheryl Hoover is happy as a suburban mum but not so happy in her marriage to
ambitious, wannabe self-help guru Richard (Greg
Kinnear). She makes no bones about that; yet instead of taking it out
on her kids she finds endless inspiration in her tiny life-loving daughter
Olive (Abigail
Breslin) her forlorn, nihilistic teenage son Dwayne (Paul
Dano), even though he has stopped speaking.
Instead of being demonised and blamed for her family’s problems, Sheryl is
clearly the one who regularly solves them. This is a “Mommy Dearest”-free zine;
Sheryl copes and rolls with the punches, her optimism seemingly boundless in
the face of emotional adversity and crisis after crisis. This uniquely
‘pro-mum’ movie makes you laugh till it hurts.
American icon
Shirley Maclaine has played her own fair share of wonderful movie
matriarch’s. As Aurora Greenway in
Terms Of Endearment (1983) she shares a unique adult relationship with
her adult daughter, Emma (Debra
Winger), facing challenges as a wife and mother.
In the wake of widowhood Aurora unexpectedly rediscovers romance when a date
with her next door neighbour interrupts her incessant gardening. Quite
literally, retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove turns out to be the naughty boy
next door, played by the naughtiest boy of them all,
Jack Nicholson. It’s a fantastic 50-something rites of passage movie
and Maclaine handles it with massive acting chops.
Again on display in two more recent titles:
Jennifer Aniston might have top billing in
Rumour Has It (2006), but it is Maclaine who is the real star playing
Katharine Richelieu, the alleged real “Mrs Robinson” on whom the film character
was based in 60s hit
'The Graduate' (1967).
Katherine is at great pains to conceal her identity from the world with
“Mrs Robinson” of course the most swinging screen mum of them all...
In
Her Shoes also has Maclaine play a clandestine mother figure, Ella, the
grandmother sisters Rose (Collette
again) and Maggie (Cameron
Diaz) never knew they had. Maclaine is superbly understated in this
complex role..
Before things get too sappy – for two of the most ‘kick-ass’ screen mums, check
out warrior-mum Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) battling liquid steel monster the
T-1000 in
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991).
Or the smack down between adoptive mum Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and the alien
monarch in another
James Cameron sequel,
Aliens (1986). Desperate Housewives they are not.
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
