Mother Daughter Act
Because I Said So
Diane Keaton and Mandy Moore star in a film written by
Karen Leigh Hopkins and Jessie Nelson and directed by Michael
Lehmann.
Reviewed by Josef Woodard
Because I Said So may just dish up a double-layer cake
of poetic justice. Firstly, the mother/daughter characters of this
fluffy, frothy comedy are bakers/caterers by trade, and of course,
there’s a recurring gag of a cake dropping and splattering. Alas,
the joke is unfunny the first time, let alone the last, and many of
the other actual joke content in the film arrives DOA. In the
script about a well-meaning but meddlesome mother (Diane Keaton)
and her chatty catch of a daughter (Mandy Moore), the feel-good
cliché pistons are working overtime, and you generally wonder if
the film was released in this off-season for a reason.
And yet, all that said, if you’re in the right forgiving,
movie-hungry mood, there are enough little payoffs along the path
to keep you plugged into the movie, even if not actively engaged.
Part of the charm comes from the appealing presence of its
principles. Keaton works up her flustered, post-Annie Hall neuroses
nicely, and Moore is warm and fuzzy, as a daughter who, through her
mother’s connivances, winds up “doing the oompah loompah” with two
eligibles. Sorting out the romantic and sexual math is part of the
screenplay’s task, between montage scenes and the fumbled cakes and
jokes.
Along the way, a few incidental questions can’t help but be
raised. Why would Van Morrison sell a bit of his soul to allow his
song into this kind of thing? And in one scene, the quite prominent
Colburn School of Performing Arts on Grand Avenue in L.A. is
changed into a generic Museum of Design, presumably just so they
could incorporate a glimpse of Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall
into the shot. Did they think we wouldn’t notice the changes made
to a familiar building in one of America’s largest cities? Such
veracity problems creep from the locations into the script and the
emotional fabric of the piece. The recipe needed more work and
taste-testing before serving it up to the masses.
We leave the theater half-smirking, half-smiling, and wondering
if Because I Said So was really directed by Michael
Lehmann of the dark comedy Heathers’ fame? The answer, oddly, is
yes.