Directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
Starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn
Released July 29th, 2016
Rated R
Let me address the mothers reading this. Hi, moms. Have you had enough? Are you stressed out? Are you fed up with your husbands? Are your kids running you ragged? It’s time to let loose! It’s time to do something for yourself! It’s time to get some girlfriends together, hire a babysitter, send the husbands packing, and watch Bad Moms. It may make you feel better, at least for an hour and a half.
When Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) walks in on her underachieving husband (David Walton) engaged in Skype sex with a woman thousands of miles away, she decides to kick him out and start living life for herself.
Amy becomes friends with the wild Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and the mousy Kiki (Kristen Bell) and they decide to throw caution to the wind and become Bad Moms. This leads to hilarious montages of outrageous behavior that the rest of the film can’t quite live up to.
Carla and Kiki take Amy to a club so she can find a guy, but Amy is still in mom-mode so all the guys reject her for being too nutty. I can’t imagine any guy in a club walking away from Mila Kunis, no matter how nutty she came across, but hey, it’s a movie.
As perfect mother Gwendolyn, Christina Applegate proves once again there are few actresses who handle comedy as well as she does. Gwendolyn is head of the PTA and generally makes the other mother’s lives miserable with her endless rules.
It’s time to get some girlfriends together, hire a babysitter, send the husbands packing, and watch “Bad Moms”.
Will anyone stand up to Gwendolyn? Will Carla be able to bond with her teenage son? Will Kiki learn to stick up for herself? Will Amy wind up with the hot widower (Jay Hernandez)? You already know the answers to these questions.
Kathryn Hahn gets all of the film’s best lines and delivers them with exceptional comedic timing, but Kristen Bell is really the only one playing a character here, with Kiki going from frumpy to fearless by film’s end. Kunis may be miscast, but her chemistry with Hahn and Bell makes up for it.
This is not a laugh-a-minute movie. There are stretches where the filmmakers wager audiences will be fine just spending time with these characters, and the filmmakers are right. Kunis, Bell, and Hahn make for a good trio of Bad Moms.
