Moms' Night Out (2014) movie review
- Peluso, who spoke with Breitbart News during a shooting break on the film, is creating faith-friendly movies with budgets far greater than past hits like Fireproof and Courageous. The costs still don't compare to many mainstream films, but Peluso doesn't think that should hamper filmmakers eager to tell their stories.
- Opens May 9 — just in time for Mother's Day!
- All Allyson and her friends want is a peaceful, grown-up evening of dinner and conversation... a long-needed moms' night out. But in order to enjoy high heels, adult conversation and food not served in a paper bag, they need their husbands to watch the kids for three hours — what could go wrong? (C) Sony/AFFIRM Films
- OK with 16% of critics but 87% of the audience. HUGE discrepancy!
- 6.8 user rating.
My impressions
Good casting. Love the central couple. I knew I liked the husband a lot — didn't realize by myself that the actor played Sam Gamgee in Lord of the Rings!
I laughed out loud all through the movie.
The essential complications were cleverly done: losing cell phones and the automobile is essential to make the plot tick. The final discovery of the missing baby is unsatisfying. No one gets to be the hero; the child is found by accident rather than by having the team of misfits conduct the search.
The fate of the woman with six months of sobriety is unresolved. Bones and the cab drive assault the man living in her house, apparently on the theory that he ought not to have allowed her to take the baby out with her when she planned to relapse. I don't buy that theory, and I hate them knocking the addict unconscious twice, once by a head but and once by being hit by the taxi.
Once the lights are turned on in police station, they never go off until the station is abandoned. The script writers wanted quiet light for the central therapeutic conversation, but did not come up with a good method to obtain it.
There is a slight non-denominational bias in the film. Bones is a one-man Christian. He is "spiritual rather than religious." He is the Enlightened One for the suffering mother. But he is as inadequate as all the dads who have failed as fathers in the film. He had care of the baby and passed that responsibility on to another woman — the "ex" of Joey. He shows no remorse for his part in it, nor do his searches bear fruit. He also wrongly (in my view) supposes that the junkie could and should have stopped the "ex" from going out with the baby.
Only one of the three children in the central family has any character development — the daughter. The older boy is merely a background presence and the younger boy is just a running joke.
- Quotations
- "I'm living my dream and I'm not happy."
- "God is with you on the good days and the bad days."
- "Just being an eagle. That's enough."
- "You spend so much time beating yourself up. You just be you. He'll take care of the rest."
- "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."
- The movie is dedicated "To Moms everywhere."
- Morals of the story.
- Perfectionism breeds depression.
- God is perfect, and He wants us to become perfect, but He is not a perfectionist. If He did not love us as we are, we could not become what He created us to be: eternal partners with God and with each other in glory.
- "It doesn't have to be perfect to be good."
References
Links
- Christy Lemire, "Moms' Night Out." Thumbs down, she says.