Movie Review of Stepmom

 

    I spent the afternoon revisiting the movie Stepmom, starring Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts. When the movie was first released, it was Christmas 1998. I was the stepmother to two girls and one boy. In addition, I had added to our brood by becoming a biological mom to a daughter (3 years) and a baby boy (5 months). I had the crazy notion that maybe this would be a perfect movie for me to see with my two "step"daughters, Danielle and Nicole over the Christmas break from school. Both resisted, and I recall that I never did see the movie in the theaters. I ended up renting it and watching it alone on VHS several months later. 

 

    Stepmom is the story about the rocky relationship between Jackie (biological mom) and Isabel (soon-to-be stepmother).  In the opening scene, Jackie, played by Sarandon, walks in on Isabel, played by Roberts, in a struggle with Jackie’s two children while attempting to get them ready for school. Jackie aloofly takes control of the situation and whisks the kids away while insulting Isabel’s lack of abilities. Thus sets the tone for the next hour and a half of the movie: mother insulting soon-to-be stepmom at every open opportunity. 

 

    When I first watched this movie nearly 17 years ago, I was watching through the lens of a stepmother. I was very defensive of the character of Isabel, becoming, at times irate with Jackie for insulting Isabel constantly. This was so commonplace that at one point her son, Ben (played by Liam Aiken), tells her that if she really wants him to hate Isabel, he will. When this happened, I really expected the mother to realize the position she was putting her children in and try to mend her ways. But, alas, this is not the case and mom continues to insult poor Isabel to no avail. This constant barrage of insults causes the daughter, Anne (played by Jena Malone) to begin to despise Isabel, making Isabel’s life miserable. This continues throughout the movie, even after Jackie is diagnosed with cancer, and realizes that Isabel some day will be the only mother figure her children will have. I remember loathing Jackie at the time, relating to my own rocky relationship with my stepchildren’s mother. She, too, would take digs at me on a regular basis and took all conversations with the kids as a chance to try and turn them against me. So, Jackie was the evil villain of the story in my 1998 eyes. 

 

    My 2015 eyes have me revisiting my original conclusive thinking about this movie. This time, I took on not only the role of the stepmother in my evaluation, but also that of the mother. I brought to this viewing my life experiences of not once, but twice in the past 10 years being faced with my own mortality. I thought about how, when I was told to prepare for the worst, my mind wandered to who might end up raising my children. My stepchildren were mostly grown with the youngest being 18 and about to graduate from high school when I was first presented with a dire diagnosis. However, at that point in my life, my biological children were just 8 and 5 years old. For this reason, I was a little harder on poor Isabel, and less critical of Jackie in 2015 than I was in 1998.

 

    One of the things I noticed about Isabel in the second viewing is that although she is good hearted and tries really hard to be a good role model, she tends to end up making inappropriate choices. One example is when Jackie asks Isabel to take the children for an afternoon. Isabel is a photographer and takes them to a photo shoot in Central Park. Isabel gives the children money to go buy ice cream and then becomes lost in her work, not noticing that Ben, the youngest has wandered off. He is later rejoined with his mother at the police station where Jackie begins ranting about how Isabel is irresponsible and will never be permitted to see her children again. She will be hiring a lawyer to see to that fact. Later that night, Luke (dad, played by Ed Harris) convinces Jackie to give Isabel another chance. 

 

    Another example of Isabel’s poor judgment is when Anne is heartbroken by her crush at school. She first seeks Isabel’s advice, but Isabel tells her she should consult her mother about the situation. Anne and her mother have a conversation about it, but things do not get better for Anne at school and the crush ends up embarrassing Anne in front of all of their friends. Isabel finds Anne crying out front of school and takes her to discuss how to handle the situation over pizza. Isabel tells Anne that she should tell the boy off after school in front of all of their friends. Isabel recommends that Anne do this using some rather profane language out front of the school. She continues with her advice by telling Anne to let the crush know she now has an older love interest and that they laugh about the crush together. She even goes as far as to arrange for an older boy to be waiting for Anne when she stomps off from the crush. All of the other children begin laughing at the crush and tell him he is a loser. Jackie happens upon the scene after school and is livid, as any mother would be. An argument ensues about how irresponsible it was for Isabel to have encouraged such behavior to which Isabel tearfully tells Jackie to cut her a break because she has the children’s best interests at heart. 

 

    The rest of the story line is pretty predictable. Mom is sick. Stepmom fills in for mom during her illness. Mom and stepmom develop a mutual respect for each other, with the ending being a total tearjerker. The theme throughout remains that the insecurities of both women being unsure of the other and lacking confidence in themselves and fearful that one day the children will not love them as much as they love the other mother.

 

    The movie has won several awards, including Susan Sarandon’s performance nomination for a Golden Globe in 1999 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture Drama. However, upon my second viewing, I found it to be lacking something. There was no closure, no setting up the stepmom as being heroic in anyway, which I guess is what I was hoping for when I wanted to view it with my stepdaughters. I was hoping that Hollywood had finally found a way to portray a stepmother as something other than evil and wicked. Instead, they never even had Isabel actually assume the role of stepmother since she never did get married during the course of the film. So, I guess the title is a little misleading, isn’t it?