The movie The Bad Mother’s Handbook, based on the bestselling book by Kate Long, is a basic story about a teen pregnancy, how it brings out old bitterness among family members, and could eventually tear a family apart. While learning secrets of her own past as well as trying to keep her daughter from making the same mistakes she did, Karen (Catherine Tate) manages to keep her mother alive, almost disown her daughter, Charlotte (Holly Grainger), and realize the patterns in her own life being reflected in her daughters.
As Charlotte deals with the struggles of a pregnancy and tries to cope with her mother’s words of disappointment, the shy nerd at school, Daniel (Robert Pattinson), makes his way into her life to help her and becomes one of the only friends she has left. Daniel starts out as just a boy that she doesn’t know exists until he provides her with the knowledge she needs to get through her pregnancy.
Though the movie’s storyline was easy to follow and had many jokes, the overall fluidity didn’t quite appeal to the viewer. Some of the scene transitions were very sudden and kind of put you in a spot where you weren’t sure why a certain character was doing what they were doing, or what the point of the scene was. Also, the rate at which time passed in the movie seemed to change a lot. The way Charlotte’s nine months of pregnancy was portrayed, one scene she was finding out she was pregnant, and the next, she was already showing. The transitions of time passing could have been showed a little differently to help the overall flow.
The relationships between the characters are portrayed very well. As Karen discovers the secrets that have been kept from her through her whole life, her mother is slowly fading away and Karen is too wrapped up to realize it. As being a mother herself, Charlotte’s grandmum helps guide her through her pregnancy because her own mother is too fed up with Charlotte and doesn’t even want to speak to her anymore. The relationship that Charlotte and her grandmum have is vital and portrayed extremely well, and it’s very important to show because the grandmum is eventually the key character that holds everyone together.
In the end, Karen realizes that even though she is bitter about her own life not being what she seemed, she can’t take it out on her daughter and let Charlotte’s life become what hers was. Although Charlotte and her actions are both spitting images of her mother’s, Karen begins to appreciate the new life that has just begun and focuses more on keeping the family together. Overall, the story is simple, and yet all of the characters seem to make it as complicated as possible.
- Actors: Catherine Tate, Anne Reid, Holliday Grainger, Steve John Shepherd, Steve Pemberton
- Directors: Robin Shepperd
- Writers: Kate Long, Kate O'Riordan
- Producers: Abi Bach, Alison Owen, David Roessell, Harry Oulton, Hugo Heppell
- Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
- Language: English
- Subtitles: English, Spanish
- Number of discs: 1
- Rated: R (Restricted)
- Studio: Lions Gate
- DVD Release Date: August 24, 2010
- Run Time: 71 minutes
ComicsOnline gives this film 3 out of 5 Cups of Tea
