Mother Knows Best

So I caught this movie today on Lifetime, on a rainy Saturday morning. For once, I'm grateful for the bad weather! When I saw the title "Mother Knows Best", with Joanna Kerns no less, I figured it would be some Lifetime movie about a mother taking off her apron and having to deal with obnoxious bratty children. Boy, was I in for a surprise.

Celeste Cooper is my idol! Joanna Kerns did an excellent job shedding her "everywoman" image. I was laughing out loud as soon as she placed the ad in her daughter's name. Grant Show and Christine Elise have some chemistry but I found their characters to be stale. Kerns steals the show here, that's for sure! It's funny how the only Lifetime movies that I like are always on at 11am on Saturdays. And those are the Lifetime movies that still run on the channel.

This is a surprisingly okay film that I caught on Lifetime - okay and Lifetime with regard to movies is usually a contradiction in terms, but not this time. Well-cast and directed with a light touch by Larry Shaw, as well as a halfway decent script, "Mother Knows Best" is both entertaining and absorbing.

Based on a true story, the beautiful and talented Joanna Kerns plays Celeste Cooper, a socialite who doesn't like her daughter's husband. He's an auto mechanic instead of a doctor. So she hires someone to kill him. "I want him shot in the head," she instructs the hit-man.

Kerns really elevates this film with her glamor and no-nonsense line deliveries. She approaches the hit as if she's arranging for a catering job. Christine Elise is her daughter and Grant Show her husband, and both are appealing. David Spielberg is Celeste's henpecked husband. Watching his daughter from afar on her wedding day, he cries and says to Celeste, "She reminds me of you the day we were married." "Shut up, George," his wife says.

Good.

This was tense, it's about an obsessed mother who hates her son-in-law only because he isn't what she wanted him to be. She couldn't face the fact her daughter Laurel was in love with a man who wasn't filthy rich and upper crust. Laurel loved him for who he was and not what he was earning. This film is good to watch on a rainy afternoon. It could've done without the silly background music, because the film is serious and not a comedy.

A not too bad Lifetime movie about a snooty, upper class mother who doesn't think her son in law is good enough for her little girl, so naturally, she decides to correct the situation by "getting rid" of him. Joanna Kerns was really good as Celeste, prancing along with a smile on her face as she pulled all her stunts to break up the marriage.

Without giving away too much, one of my favorite exchanges in this movie was:

"So, you ever met a cop?

"No, I don't believe so"

"You have now!"

I loved this movie. It was extremely entertaining, and featured an excellent cast. Joanna Kerns was wicked as Celeste, and Christine Elise was also great as the innocent daughter. If you don't know the plot of this story, here it is.

Joanna Kerns plays Celeste, a rich woman who feels that it's time for her daughter to have a serious relationship. So she places a personal ad in the paper. When a guy, played by Grant Shaw of "Melrose Place", answers the ad, it's love at first sight for him and the daughter, played by Christine Elise. But mother isn't impressed with daughter's new boyfriend, because he is a mechanic, and not a lawyer or a doctor. So she arranges for him to be murdered!

A Great little thriller. I Highly recommend it.

My rating: 8/10