Mother Knows Best

This is a surprisingly okay film that I caught on Lifetime - okay and Lifetime with regard to movies is usually a contradiction in terms, but not this time. Well-cast and directed with a light touch by Larry Shaw, as well as a halfway decent script, "Mother Knows Best" is both entertaining and absorbing.

Based on a true story, the beautiful and talented Joanna Kerns plays Celeste Cooper, a socialite who doesn't like her daughter's husband. He's an auto mechanic instead of a doctor. So she hires someone to kill him. "I want him shot in the head," she instructs the hit-man.

Kerns really elevates this film with her glamor and no-nonsense line deliveries. She approaches the hit as if she's arranging for a catering job. Christine Elise is her daughter and Grant Show her husband, and both are appealing. David Spielberg is Celeste's henpecked husband. Watching his daughter from afar on her wedding day, he cries and says to Celeste, "She reminds me of you the day we were married." "Shut up, George," his wife says.

Good.

A friend had seen this flick a while back and recommended it, and I happened to see it listed for a rerun on "Lifetime" today.

Glanced at the prior comments here, and after viewing this opus, would agree with their positive viewpoints.

Joanna Kerns' evil mom was as delightfully and completely selfish, obsessive and wicked a character as one is likely to encounter. "Mother-in-law-from-Hell" is almost too mild an adjective. Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction," and Jack Nicholson in "As Good As It Gets" could qualify to become trainees as mental health workers, comparing their problems relative to Joanna's personality disorders.

Sonny Corleone would exert more deliberation and examination of possible alternatives, before ordering somebody whacked, than this overbearing mother did in engaging a hit man.

However, overall, this was a relatively "quiet" flick, given the nature of the story and plot. I found this appealing, and there was little yelling, and no raucous knife-wielding climax, common to so many "Lifetime" offerings. This made it a better viewing, and the Kerns' character was all the better for her steady, unfailing, almost low-key way by which she portrayed her evil character's persona.

A worthwhile two hours' entertainment.

This was tense, it's about an obsessed mother who hates her son-in-law only because he isn't what she wanted him to be. She couldn't face the fact her daughter Laurel was in love with a man who wasn't filthy rich and upper crust. Laurel loved him for who he was and not what he was earning. This film is good to watch on a rainy afternoon. It could've done without the silly background music, because the film is serious and not a comedy.

Viewing this was probably the most enjoyable two hours of my life.

I saw this a while back on Channel Five, and couldn't wait to get a copy, but sadly it's not been released on DVD or VHS, so I've hit a dead end. However, next time it's shown, I'll be sure to tape it! It's about a dominating mother who answers an advert in the paper from a boy who wants to find a date, and makes her daughter go out with him. What she doesn't know is that he's got a poor job (by her standards) and so, she sets out to split the two up, leading to inexplicable consequences.

Honestly, if you ever get the chance, give this one a look. You won't be disappointed.

A not too bad Lifetime movie about a snooty, upper class mother who doesn't think her son in law is good enough for her little girl, so naturally, she decides to correct the situation by "getting rid" of him. Joanna Kerns was really good as Celeste, prancing along with a smile on her face as she pulled all her stunts to break up the marriage.

Without giving away too much, one of my favorite exchanges in this movie was:

"So, you ever met a cop?

"No, I don't believe so"

"You have now!"