As their mother, Cloris Leachman, points our, just because your a mother doesn't mean you feel like one or even want to be one. This is not a feel good family movie, even as a comedy. The three daughters are Diane Keaton, Meg Ryan and Lisa Kudrow, and the plot surrounds life with father, not mother. He's Walter Matthau, a lovable but senile 79 year old, more consumed with John Wayne's supposed small pecker and a giant bullet that the Duke gave him when he starred in a film that Matthau wrote, than his increasing dementia. Ryan is the caretaker in the family, there constantly at his side, while magazine editor Keaton and soap opera actress Kudrow are far too consumed with their lives to really care. It's obvious that Matthau is slowly fading so it will take a major wake up call to get the other two sister's attention.
While Ryan and Kudrow seem like sisters, Keaton is as far from being believable, even as (apparently) being much older. It's interesting too that the oldest is the most distant, because usually, it's the opposite. Matthau is the consummate scene stealer, so delightfully un p.c. and speaking his mind freely. One scene shows what happens to the mind as Matthau goes on a rampage against Ryan, the only one of the three who certainly doesn't deserve it. The script seems to be all over the place, having one scene being at Christmas, and one right after at Halloween, with no evidence that it is supposed to be a flashback.
Still, the script does get certain truths right about family and reminds the viewer that the best drama comes from the conflicts within one's own memory of the hardships being around people that you are forced to love but always find it difficult once the physical closeness turns to estrangement. The focus on Ryan over the other two shows her as very flawed too, and her own flaw of driving while on the phone resulting in a car accident brought out an important point that must have gone over the heads of viewers at the time. In Matthau's last film, he is as commanding as Henry Fonda was in "On Golden Pond", although there is absolutely no subtlety in his characterization. A scene where Ryan lies about her mother being killed in a 9.11 earthquake is uncomfortable to watch, not only for the obvious lie, but for the irony of the numbers chosen. Leachman's appearance is barely a cameo. The scenes of the three sisters fighting then making up doesn't seem at all real. So much potential for a great film gone sour with poor choices in the overall structure and script.
While Ryan and Kudrow seem like sisters, Keaton is as far from being believable, even as (apparently) being much older. It's interesting too that the oldest is the most distant, because usually, it's the opposite. Matthau is the consummate scene stealer, so delightfully un p.c. and speaking his mind freely. One scene shows what happens to the mind as Matthau goes on a rampage against Ryan, the only one of the three who certainly doesn't deserve it. The script seems to be all over the place, having one scene being at Christmas, and one right after at Halloween, with no evidence that it is supposed to be a flashback.
Still, the script does get certain truths right about family and reminds the viewer that the best drama comes from the conflicts within one's own memory of the hardships being around people that you are forced to love but always find it difficult once the physical closeness turns to estrangement. The focus on Ryan over the other two shows her as very flawed too, and her own flaw of driving while on the phone resulting in a car accident brought out an important point that must have gone over the heads of viewers at the time. In Matthau's last film, he is as commanding as Henry Fonda was in "On Golden Pond", although there is absolutely no subtlety in his characterization. A scene where Ryan lies about her mother being killed in a 9.11 earthquake is uncomfortable to watch, not only for the obvious lie, but for the irony of the numbers chosen. Leachman's appearance is barely a cameo. The scenes of the three sisters fighting then making up doesn't seem at all real. So much potential for a great film gone sour with poor choices in the overall structure and script.