Oh. What. Fun.2025

At the beginning, it seemed like it was going to be a pretty fair criticism of families in general. How the kids and the parents can be neglectful, self-important, or absent-minded. But as the film went on, the message became more and more clear that moms are a hard-working and completely underappreciated and misunderstood commodity in America today. Which I don’t inherently disagree with, but the way the film decides to depict that message seems more like mom fan fiction than a well-constructed narrative or comment on typical American households.  The mother literally drives away on a multi-day road trip without telling anyone that she left or where she is going. And then when they find her, the daughter explains how she feels neglected by the mom, and the mom is like, “It’s just because I love you so much.” Toxic. Yuck.  I don’t know. I feel like the wrong kind of mom will watch this and say, “That’s right, my kids don’t do enough. I work so hard, and nobody cares. I am so underappreciated. I have to do everything.” Yada yada.  Another thing. They make a joke about how parents always ask you to talk to people you don’t know or met once when you were a kid. And I thought that was connected to the point about how the mom keeps asking her kids to nominate for the tv show contest. I know. Because my mom has done both those things to me. But given the way it is played, maybe the movie genuinely thinks the daughter should be talking to these random people the mom tells her about because the movie also has a big aha moment about the contest. Where the kids all go, “Oh yeah, the contest. Did you enter her in that? No?” Bla bla bla. Ignoring the simple fact that maybe they just didn’t want to nominate you. Not because you are “underappreciated” but because you just don’t deserve it. But that thought doesn’t cross the mind of the mom or of this movie.  Whatever. I missed Now you see me, now you don’t, so it was nice seeing Dominic Sessa in something. He’s what gets my three stars.