Bad Moms

Sometimes you have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than watch a horribly put together 'female comedy'. We're better than this girls...

Bad Moms begins with a particularly good mum in Amy Mitchell, played by the always beautiful Mila Kunis. She balances a 60 hour work week of being an overachieving full-time employee whilst also being a full-time mum. Although seemingly appearing to be the 'supermum', she never really gets the job done and sees herself as always coming up just short. After a day of nothing but bad outcomes and misfortune, Amy has enough of trying to live up to the image of being a mum with everything going right for herself and her family. She decides to live for herself and be wild and free but the other local mums refuse to let such blasphemy happen. One mum in particular, Gwendolyn James, played by Christina Applegate, has her eyes on Amy acting out and is set on tearing her back down.

While the film had plenty of moments of comedy, as you would expect in a 'comedy' film, the whole thing fell flat. The story was absolutely laughable, and not in the positive way. The climactic emotional moment made me feel absolutely nothing because the film spent no time making the characters likable or even tolerable. The love interest of the movie is forced and could have been excluded entirely without any real hindrance to the film. Almost every plot point was unrealistic and forgetful. Bad Moms is the very definition of a conventional comedy in that way, with the story being virtually predictable from the get go. It's upsetting that a film like this, promoted as being a film for women by women, provides a few chuckles and nothing else. Why can't we have the developed and complex characters portrayed in the male steered traditional comedy or action films. Hell, The Accountant did a better job representing women in the 21st century - and it featured a damsel in distress being rescued by a man! A few of the characters are complete caricatures and stereotypes which are clearly derived from a cookie cutter idea of the different types of women and the plot follows the beat by beat story arc of 'redemption of the down-on-her-luck protagonist' to a very tee. Mila, pick better roles please.

To the critical mind, this film falls way short of being anything special. To the targeted demographic that the film focuses on, this film will be a sure fire box office hit to them. So unless you fall within the latter, this film wont contribute anything to your day.

The Accountant

Christian Wolff, played by Ben Affleck, is a wickedly smart mathematician who is an accountant by day and, if the event calls for it, a bad-ass book cooker/killing machine by night. The Accountant is ultimately an incredible character study on a man who suffers from autism and is taught, rather harshly, to control his condition rather than let it hinder his ability to live life 'normally'. It weaves pertinent moments in Christian’s life that shaped the man he became with the present day as he investigates a company and its missing money. 

Anna Kendrick‘s portrayal of Dana Cummings, the woman who initially notices discrepancies in this company - headed by John Lithgow - is convincing and her chemistry with Affleck was surprisingly more believable than I had imagined it would be. However, the real standouts was Affleck. He managed to encompass everything about his character, the bad and the good, allowing audiences to invest in the story. There were scenes in which we saw moments of self harm that were tense and at times difficult to watch but  seemed to be perfectly within the films scope of violence and brought the focus back to the subplot of mental illness. The Accountant’s emphasis on it's main character, Christian Wolff, is explored brilliantly. A major critique of the film was that the various plot points were difficult to follow. Whilst I agree that one or two moments could have been explained in more detail to conceive a more rounded story, the film as a whole was captivating and well paced. 

The film thankfully does not try to glamorize mental illness. Instead it portrays autism and individuals who live with such disabilities in an honest and unforgiving light. There was no obviously disrespectful portrayal, intended to shock the audience rather than add depth to the characters. Gavin O’Connor, the director, manages to showcase the action sequences in a riveting way, with not as many fast cuts or camera tricks reminiscent of realist directors. This approach is more appropriate, in my opinion, when depicting topics and characters that are unfortunately still taboo in our society. The power of the film was left instead to the tense buildup sequences before an action shot. 

A powerful film that would suit audiences who don't typically enjoy the action genre, The Accountant was full of surprises - the most impressive of which was Affleck's believability and likeability.