STEPMOM (1998; Chris Columbus)

GRADE: D-

By Daniel Barnes

*Originally published on the Movie City USA blog on June 5, 2008.

At the end of Chris Columbus’ mummified would-be tearjerker Stepmom, a credit reads, “In Loving Memory of Irene Columbus.”  It’s a reference to the director’s mother, who had died only one year earlier. This lets the viewer know that the phony, maudlin tripe they just rolled their eyes through has an emotional connection to the filmmaker.  Clearly, Stepmom is the type of deeply personal tripe that can only five writers and eleven producers could tell. Exploiting your own mother’s death to wring one last tear out of the Christmas 1998 moviegoing audience might seem like an all-time low, even for the man who could go on to direct Bicentennial Man.  However, that’s what you get from a feel-good cynic like Columbus.

“Genuinely Ugly”

Stepmom did alright at the box office, pulling in about $90 million, but the story is so enervated it barely qualifies as a film.  It feels more like a package deal put together by a talent agency. Julia Roberts is a “hip” photographer who has recently moved in with corporate lawyer Ed Harris. He has two kids from his previous marriage to Susan Sarandon’s imperious upstate Earth mother, a bratty teenage girl (Jena Malone) and a mop-topped little boy obsessed with magic.

The relationships are all pretty firmly established even before the film starts, so there’s nothing to do but to listen to Roberts’ and Sarandon’s voices out-quaver each other (Stepmom features some of the most laughable fake-crying in film history). Sarandon gets diagnosed with cancer less than halfway through Stepmom.  This leaves the viewer in the awkward position of rooting for a mother of two to croak, if only because it would end the movie.

Taking their cue from Sarandon’s vindictive character, both of the kids despise Roberts and her relationship with Harris.  Meanwhile, the soulless script forces them to recite some truly vile dialogue. Trust me when I say that the dialogue in Stepmom goes beyond the boundaries of mere incompetence and offensiveness into some genuinely ugly territory. I could post a litany of jaw-droppers straight from the script, but instead, I’ll refer you to the Stepmom “Memorable Quotes” page on IMDB. Two of my personal favorites, though: when the precocious little boy tells Sarandon, “Mommy, if you want me to hate her…I will,” and when the teenage girl screams, “Mommy’s dead! Isabel’s your mommy now!” at her little brother when Sarandon reveals her cancer.

“Humiliated and Degraded”

It’s disturbing to hear such young children speak such vile, unctuous words.  I would rather my child star in a Hostel film than force them to recite this swill. If you’re going to make children say such terrible things, you should at least back it up with a movie about divorce and death that is sincere and penetrating. In other words, the type of film that Chris Columbus wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

Instead, Sarandon just contracts one of those glamorous movie cancers, the kind where you become more incandescent and wise as you slowly slip into a symptom-less offscreen death.  Stepmom ends not with Sarandon’s death, but with Roberts and Sarandon posing for a Christmas card together. Roberts and Sarandon snipe at and undermine each other for the first two-thirds of Stepmom, then spend the final third misting up and whispering Oprah-lite affirmations.  The glycerine budget alone must have staggering.

We’re supposed to find Roberts and Sarandon’s feistiness charming, but mostly the two actresses aggressively spew spunkiness at each other. The viewer of Stepmom is similarly left feeling as though they were covered in spunk as well, humiliated and degraded by the lifeless performances. Ed Harris is mostly MIA, and his reliability can’t even save the show. He holds the glassy stare and frozen grin of a hostage. Other offending elements include the napkin-sketch of a script, John Williams’ goopy score and Columbus’ pathetic inability to either shape a scene or inject any of his personality into the film.

“Pointless Caterwauling”

Someday, I would like to do a complete analysis of the role of karaoke in the contemporary women’s picture. Has there been a single rom-com in the last decade in which karaoke was not the catalyst for emotional breakthroughs and bonds?  Can you think of any movie featuring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Garner, or Brittany Murphy that didn’t involve some pointless caterwauling over pop songs?

In Stepmom, karaoke acts as a stand-in for any emotional bonds and breakthroughs that would normally get earned by competent acting, writing and directing. It would seem that My Best Friend’s Wedding, in which karaoke was the proving ground for Cameron Diaz’s would-be bride, launched the movement. However, Stepmom was also at the vanguard, proving that no family tragedy, personal bias or cancerous growth is so terrible that it can’t get instantaneously wiped away by lip-synching “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” into a comb.

Allowing the karaoke virus to spread throughout rom-coms is no significant loss to me – the genre has been dead to me for decades.  However, I hate to see it infect even a claws-out weeper like this one. It makes me think that if they remade Mildred Pierce, Joan Crawford and Teresa Wright would hash out their differences over a hair-flipping, pajama-clad rendition of The Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.”

“Vile Dialogue”

I don’t have anything else to say about Stepmom, but I would like to add that Sarandon and her young son “go on dates” in their dreams, and plan on hooking up again after her death. I’ll let you draw your conclusions on the artistic motivations of that one.

Before I close this review, I can’t resist posting one last example of the genuinely vile dialogue that permeates Stepmom. This exchange is between Ed Harris and his young son.

Ben Harrison (Harris): Can you fall out of love with your kids?
Luke: No. That is impossible!
Ben Harrison: Like Mission: Impossible!

Read more of Daniel’s reviews at Dare Daniel and Rotten Tomatoes, and listen to Daniel on the Dare Daniel podcast.