I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Simply A Masterpiece

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The dogma of religious and social politics are, in the end, mere scenery. You could put this independent ditty in any social setting where behavior and expectations are scrutinized. I think a successful 12-stepper in particular would recognize the elementary purity of the message. A pleasant surprise. Drugs and alcohol are represented, by analogy and metaphor, as symptoms rather than as root cause, of the manifestations of character defects and the interactions of personal and societal expectations. Conflict-> resolution. Crucifixion -- by self and circumstances -- resurrection and ascension; virtue as its own reward. No different than Return of the Jedi, in that sense, and a lot less noise.

Kathleen Turner was great as a neurotic and psychopathic mom in Serial Mother. When I watched the trailer of The Perfect Mother, I laughed, and so I expected to find in it the same folly as in John Waters' comedy. Eileen Cleary is a mother and a devout catholic. She happens to be nominated against her best enemy for the award of the catholic woman of the year. If she wins, she will receive the greatest prize : the absolution of her sins. To be elected, she needs to be assiduous at church and in her charity works, but she also needs to have a perfect family. The trouble is, her husband is a former alcoholic, her son has just left his wife and kids for the manicurist next door, and her daughter is gay, and pregnant. The accumulation of clichés as obstacles can be funny in a comedy, but not here. The film – except for some good lines and Turner's acting – is pretty boring. I didn't laugh, I barely smiled. It takes ages to actually start, and when it does, it doesn't go very far. Eileen is in a quandary : she has to choose between her family and her faith. What will she do ? I mean come on, this is a comedy, we all know how it is going to end. The problem is not the end really. The problem is that the scenes that are supposed to illustrate Eileen's conflict with her family, and her own dilemma, are not funny, but they are not sad either, or deep. The film remains on the surface so as not to shock anyone. It remains politically correct, full of good intentions, so of course, it fails as a comedy, and it also fails as a drama. Don't waste your time watching more than the trailer.Read my other reviews on http://filmcritiks.wordpress.com/

and that's just not cool for all the non catholics out there not getting half the movie. Still, hilarious! My advice: get a catholic friend to watch it with you and guide you through. It will probably become a 5 hour long movie/documentary/commentary piece/ice cream marathon. But it will be all worth... This flix felt literally like home. The plot, the direction and the acting are just fine. There is no reason for bashing it. No, wait, there is but you "have to" in the "must" sense have been raised catholic and still be a vatican newsletter non-subscriber. Like we say back home: "it takes a bad catholic to see a good one" or is the other way round? Peace.

The reviews I've read miss the entire point of this script, IMO. KT's character has lived most of her life trying to earn absolution for an act any Catholic woman, and most women who are mothers, would never be able to forgive themselves for (never mind one's political position on choice). She's dedicated her life to good works in her local diocese toward this end and, as a result, is offered the possibility of "complete absolution" of her sin by the church. After 30 years of attending confessional to absolve herself of her petty sins -- taking the lord's name in vain; doubting tenets of her faith -- this possibility of forgiveness for what, as a woman, is unforgivable, means everything to her. When that clashes with the realities of her family situation (gay daughter, divorcing adulterer son, husband who can no longer tolerate her self loathing and resultant intolerance), she must traverse a lot of emotional territory very quickly, because if she wants the absolution she thought mattered most, she has little time to make the case to the Church she has the "right" Catholic family, when everyone she loves needs her forbearance for being who they are, and none of them judges her or, if they knew the facts, would readily forgive her for her One Great Sin.There are clunky scenes, but I loved this story and these characters. (And wish NYT ratings were easier to navigate and edit).