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BECAUSE I SAID SO Send This Review to a Friend
Here’ a film that represents the worst of what Hollywood does when aiming a formula comedy at a mass audience. “Because I Said So,” in which an overbearing mother takes out internet ads to find a husband for one of her daughters, is the sort of film that cuts to reactions of a dog. To give you an idea of how awful it is, the funniest moment is when the dog, upon seeing the pornography mom is watching on the TV screen, gets aroused and starts humping the furniture.
As Daphne, Diane Keaton, an actress I have long admired, is not only overbearing to her daughters. She’s overbearing to the audience with a mess of hysterical, jerking movements with matching expressions and non-stop interfering patter. She’s downright difficult to watch. Mandy Moore as Milly, the targeted daughter, has to give ugly snorts when she laughs, a habit mom wisely says she should drop. Milly, who doesn’t know what her mother is up to, winds up dating two men, which leads to predictable complications.
One of the men has an eligible father. Is it any surprise that he’ll become involved with mom? After all, she needs a good roll in the hay, if only to shut her up, and down deep her loneliness is what largely motivates her. Just how sexually deprived Daphne has been is revealed when she asks Milly what an orgasm is like. This is also a film in which cell phones never stop ringing.
And yet…Comments I’ve heard from a few people who have seen the coming attractions indicate that the mother-daughter issues out there could make the film popular no matter what critics or other detractors may think.
“Because I Said So” has been written by Karen Leigh Hopkins and Jessie Nelson and directed by Michael Lehmann. It also stars Gabriel Macht, Tom Everett Scott, Lauren Graham, Piper Perabo and Stephen Collins. A Universal Pictures release.
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