The famous Hollywood director Harry Marshall in the last years of his work has shot several almanac films dedicated to the generally recognized and beloved holidays in the USA. First there was “Valentine's Day” in 2010, then “Old New Year” in 2011 and, finally, “Obnoxious Ladies” in 2016. The rating of paintings became lower and lower, and the feedback from viewers and critics was more and more sarcastic .
About the title
The original name of the painting by G. Marshall sounds like Mother's Day, i.e. "Mothers Day". The film is dedicated to the eponymous holiday, which is celebrated in the USA on the second Sunday of May. The name "Intolerable Ladies" is an absolute fiction of domestic distributors. It has nothing to do with the plot. However, the previous film by G. Marshall New Year's Eve (literally "New Year's Eve") also came out with an absurd title - "Old New Year."
Plot of the film
There are no unbearable ladies in the picture. Fancy? With character? Maybe. The film “Unbearable Ladies” is an almanac from several stories that are intricately intertwined. A single father with two daughters is trying to survive the loss of his beloved wife. Next to him is the divorced mother of two boys with his own problem: the ex-husband married a 20-year-old beauty, and the boys really like her stepmother. Immediately, the viewer is switched to the fate of the writer and TV presenter - very successful, but childless. Many years ago, she left her daughter in an orphanage. Now she herself became a mother and appeared on the horizon. Well, almost a classic trick: two sisters hiding from conservative parents that one of them is married to an Indian, and the second is a lesbian.
Cast
Even the brilliant cast did not save from criticism and negative reviews of “Unbearable Ladies”. Mr. Marshall was not the first to collect Hollywood cream on one set. And this time, starring his favorite Julia Roberts (a lonely and famous TV presenter), Kate Hudson (one of the sisters, married to a Hindu), Jennifer Aniston (a divorced mother of two boys) and Jason Sudeikis (a widower with two daughters) .
The star of the romantic film "Pretty Woman", which, incidentally, was also shot by G. Marshall, received a record fee for a failed movie rental. The cost of one shooting day of Julia Roberts amounted to 750 thousand dollars. In total there were three, and the fee exceeded three million.
Unbearable Ladies: Criticism
The rating of the film on the popular portal about movies and TV shows Rotten Tomatoes is only 44%. Spectators and critics practically did not cause any complaints about the acting, but they were strict with the script. This is what leading US and UK publications think.
The British newspaper The Guardian rather abruptly and frankly called Marshall’s last picture garbage with a cheap plot, but it made a reservation that the director had amazing films in the past that still make the audience nostalgic. “It is inexpedient to link together a lot of poorly thought out stories with the help of coincidences and conspiracies. The film "Mother's Day" can be recommended to the most boring people living on the planet. Each scene reveals the level of grief of Atlanta's high society, which has huge houses and at the same time seems to have no work, ”the critic noted.
The review of The Unbearable Ladies by The Hollywood Reporter is also harsh. "What is the film" Mother's Day "? In the first minutes of watching you hear funny music, see a sunny morning and friendly people. Then everything goes bad. The film is bad from the very beginning, and by the end it does not improve, ”the review says. The critic noted the poor structure of the tape compared to the previous "festive" comedies of Marshall, in which famous actors abounded. The audience in them did not stay with someone for a long time. There are few characters in Mother's Day, and storylines take up more screen time. There is no buffer between the viewer and the inept film.
The British edition of The Telegraph in its review of "Intolerable Ladies" writes that this film is the worst that Hollywood could do with moms. “This time, the director juggles five superficially intersecting storylines, the characters are idiocy extravagant, contemptuous and conduct dialogue with an almost comatose face,” the publication noted.
It is very sad that the film, which won the most negative reviews, was the last for the master of romantic comedies G. Marshall. Less than three months after the world premiere on April 26, 2016, the director died in the eighty-first year of his life.