IN BAD MOMS, Amy (Mila Kunis) is a working mother of two who, out of exhaustion, rejects the perfect-mom paradigm. She joins forces with single-mom Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and stay-at-home naĆÆf Kiki (Kristen Bell, whose hair is perpetually limp and sad, just like her) to reclaim ābadā parenting. But since Bad Moms is a film about women made by the men who wrote The Hangover, itās motherhood through bro-colored glasses: Drinking sequences, the word āvagina,ā and blunt-force impact are mined for laughs, and just as modern moms are hamstrung by a lack of paid maternity leave and gender double standards, the filmās potential for revenge-flick fun or bawdy escapism is curbed through shallow sentimentality.
Hahn and Bell deliver the filmās funniest lines, though sometimes we watch Kunis laugh at their jokes (this way we know what they said was funny). Similarly, many scenes are bolstered with loud, girl-power anthems by Demi Lovato and Icona Pop, so we know that the women are Being Empowered.
When Amy attests, āItās impossible to be a āgood momāāāas she does several times throughout the filmāsheās not wrong. Thanks to the decline of affordable housing, the increase in childcare costs, racism, sexismāI can keep goingāmodern moms truly have the deck stacked against them. Bad Momsā real disservice isnāt its college humor, itās that these issues are paid lip serviceāAmyās antagonized by her clueless boss, slacker husband, and a power-hungry PTA mom, but not by the wage gap, the second shift, or cuts to public education. These are issues that canāt be solved by binge drinking and Demi Lovato, though Iām sure many have tried.
Itās not all disappointing: There are moments such as Kiki standing up to her controlling husband, and Amy telling off her son lest he become āanother entitled white male,ā and a Wanda Sykes cameo. Like Vitaminwater or Kind bars, Bad Moms isnāt as good for you as it thinks it is, but itās not entirely awful to consume.