It’s always intriguing when actresses as respected as Naomi Watts and Robin Wright turn up in films with plot outlines straight out of a porn movie or a particularly salacious soap opera. The thrill comes in wondering just how they will class up the joint – how they’ll turn a sketchy premise into something complex, deep and harrowing. In this instance, they had a lot to work with – or so one would think. Perfect Mothers – a title that has swiftly been changed to the less controversial, more indie-friendly Adore for the American market – is about two mothers who fall in love with each other’s sons. Of course, this happens after the boys have come of age, so the romantic entanglements become somewhat less morally dubious. That’s the theory anyway – it certainly isn’t borne out in practice.
Lil (Watts) and Roz (Wright) are the very best of friends – they have been by each other’s side from their sun-kissed, beach-warmed childhood days, right through to getting married and giving birth to two beautiful young boys. They even live next door to each other in a remote beach-side town. They share everything: secrets, lives and their children – all of which take on a more literal, dangerous aspect when Roz first has sex with Lil’s son Ian (Xavier Samuel), who ardently adores her. Before long, Lil begins a sexual relationship with Tom (James Frecheville) as well.
There’s a great deal of dark, intelligent, dramatic potential to be mined from this storyline – and about a hundred fine lines to walk in terms of ensuring that the material never feels cheap or sordid. Certainly, one would have cause for optimism: apart from Watts and Wright, the film is directed by Anne Fontaine, a Frenchwoman who should bring to bear a more complex feminine perspective on the film, and adapted by screenwriter Christopher Hampton, who has worked on tricky material before to Oscar-winning effect.
On almost all counts, Perfect Mothers falls quite drastically short. Strictly speaking, there is no taboo here – the two women are not biologically related to the young men they hook up with – but it’s written in such a way that the conundrum nevertheless presents itself. The crucial questions of ‘why’ and ‘how’ the two mothers can set aside years of memories and social, moral obligations to embark on relationships with boys who might as well be their own sons go unanswered. There is no hint of genuine romantic love or interest in the film that comes across as convincing, largely because the characters are all woefully underwritten. The boys, in particular, are never really given the opportunity to demonstrate any depth or complexity as believable, mature adults.
As a result, the connections forged between Lil and Tom, Ian and Roz, feel forced – it’s hard to brush aside the feeling that there’s nothing more there than sex and lust, even when the film deliberately tells us that there is. It’s a case of no show and all tell, a cheap trick that might have worked if the cast had been given more to work with in the script. Sadly, they are saddled with stilted, unrealistic dialogue, some of it so bad that not even experienced, powerful actresses like Watts or Wright can lend it much credibility. Both Samuel and Frecheville come off as awkward, gauche, and inexperienced, which is partly the point of their characters – but they also seem to be trapped in a hellishly unsubtle soap opera instead of a sensitive, thoughtful arthouse film.
The final half hour of the film purports to explore the implications and consequences of sleeping with your mom’s best friend. Again, one might hope for something a little more realistic, a little smarter and darker. However, Perfect Mothers disappoints again, eschewing emotional truth in favour of half-baked melodrama. By this point, the film has degenerated into a soap opera, the characters all going through the motions of the ever-more ridiculous plot, and there’s little that the valiant efforts of Watts and Wright can do to salvage the entire enterprise.
Basically: Intriguing and insightful in theory, melodramatic and fake in practice.
shawneofthedead 