Stepmom (G)

Reviewed by Russell Baillie

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Julia Roberts, Ed Harris
Director: Christopher Columbus

In a word, squishy. That's Stepmom, a sort of edge-free, hanky-required, group hug of a movie.

Yes, with the presence of Sarandon and Roberts, it does exude a certain class in the acting department but it's also profoundly irritating in several others.

The story follows what happens between divorced mom Sarandon, her mouthy children, her ex-hubby Harris and Roberts - the woman he has taken up with.

Sarandon is the supermom, ever-sarcastic about her usurper; Roberts is the one damaging her fabulous photography career by taking up with a guy with two demanding kids and finding it hard to be a maternal stand-in.

But their respective New York homes are fabulous - director Columbus (Home Alone, Nine Months, Mrs Doubtfire) has already proved a happy propagandist for middle-class American life. And the kids are just so perky when they're not being brats, sometimes given to bursting into song with their real mom, while making life hell for Roberts' domesticity-challenged Isobel.

And so it goes, with the underutilised Harris looking on from the sidelines as the two women in his life try to win petty victories over each other. That's until C turns up and we're into Terms of Endearment territory.

The real pity is that despite Sarandon and Roberts' best efforts, any real poignancy comes wrapped in the soggy tissue of Columbus' delivery.

Yes, it'll make you laugh a little, make you cry if you let yourself be sucked in to its manipulations but in the end make you wonder why you bothered.* *
-Weekend TimeOut