Bad Moms boils down to a sheer liberation from perfection. Parents, especially first-timers like myself, think they have to act or think or certain way that's conducive to a child's growth. It almost feels like you're walking through a field of mistake mines where every little misstep threatens to blow your world apart. This film begs the question: What if we turned that thought-process on its head? What if we started to act for ourselves first before our children?
The result is one heck of a hilarious time. While the moments of relating to the moms stress out over their kids is funny in and of itself at times, the point when they decide to let go and cut loose is when you really start to crack up. Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) finally hits a ground zero point where she has had enough of being the perfect parent and her reaction on the other side is priceless. Many in the audience were cheering out loud when Amy stands up for herself against her helpless children and the PTA. It's even funnier because she has no balance whatsoever. She quickly transforms from homemaker to trainwreck without skipping a beat.
Amy is helped along in her quest to be bad by two other moms Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla Dunkler (Kathryn Hahn). Kiki is even worse off than Amy as she has twice as many kids and a husband who demands that she do all the legwork in raising them and taking care of the house. Her timidity is endearing and funny at the same time. Carla, on the other hand, was born to raise hell. She commands every single scene that she is in and I found it rare the moments that she didn't get a laugh out of me. Whether she's threatening to bang the other moms' husbands if they didn't vote for Amy as the Head of PTA or discussing her pure lack of interest in being a good parent, almost every word that comes out of her mouth seems to leave me in fits.
Christina Applegate plays the role of Gwendolyn James, current Head of the PTA. She was easily my biggest gripe with the movie as I thought she exerted way too much energy in making Amy's life a living hell. I get it, you want to be the best, but the ends to which she was willing to go was too implausible for my taste, even for a movie. Her explanation at the end as to why she acted they way she did didn't really redeem her at all.
No Bad Moms isn't the perfect comedy or on the Apatow plane of funny, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do: It leaves you with a big smile on your face. If you can still find it in theaters (long shot), it's great for a date night. And, guys, don't be intimidated about the higher volume of women present. We're all in this together. We all get it. We're all parents.
Bad Moms gets an 80.
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