The Perfect Family (2011)

Eileen Cleary (Kathleen Turner) is desperate to be the best Catholic in the neighborhood. So it's great news when she's nominated for Catholic Woman of the year. Except her family is a mess of inappropriateness and she needs to be better than all the rest for the award. Her lesbian daughter Shannon (Emily Deschanel) is pregnant. Her son Frank Cleary Jr. (Jason Ritter) left his wife and kids for the beautician next door. Her husband Frank Cleary (Michael McGrady) can't stand her.This is not anti-Catholic in my opinion. It is much more anti-competition to see who's the best Catholic. It's the competition that's ugly. The central theme is acceptance. After all, she wins the award even when all is revealed. Kathleen Turner's character is too harsh and unlikeable. It's hard to watch sometimes. However, it was nice to watch her character grow.

Kathleen Turner was great as a neurotic and psychopathic mom in Serial Mother. When I watched the trailer of The Perfect Mother, I laughed, and so I expected to find in it the same folly as in John Waters' comedy. Eileen Cleary is a mother and a devout catholic. She happens to be nominated against her best enemy for the award of the catholic woman of the year. If she wins, she will receive the greatest prize : the absolution of her sins. To be elected, she needs to be assiduous at church and in her charity works, but she also needs to have a perfect family. The trouble is, her husband is a former alcoholic, her son has just left his wife and kids for the manicurist next door, and her daughter is gay, and pregnant. The accumulation of clichés as obstacles can be funny in a comedy, but not here. The film – except for some good lines and Turner's acting – is pretty boring. I didn't laugh, I barely smiled. It takes ages to actually start, and when it does, it doesn't go very far. Eileen is in a quandary : she has to choose between her family and her faith. What will she do ? I mean come on, this is a comedy, we all know how it is going to end. The problem is not the end really. The problem is that the scenes that are supposed to illustrate Eileen's conflict with her family, and her own dilemma, are not funny, but they are not sad either, or deep. The film remains on the surface so as not to shock anyone. It remains politically correct, full of good intentions, so of course, it fails as a comedy, and it also fails as a drama. Don't waste your time watching more than the trailer.Read my other reviews on http://filmcritiks.wordpress.com/

"I don't have to think, I'm catholic." Eileen Cleary (Turner) has finally been nominated for Catholic Woman Of The Year and wants to win it badly. She will stop at nothing to win which includes trying to cover up her families choices. She then becomes conflicted as to winning or being a supportive mother. I have to start by saying that after the first half hour I was almost ready to turn this off. I'm not saying that it wasn't good but just really slow and seemed to lack emotion. The more I watched the better it got though and I really liked the ending. For a movie like this the ending was perfect. My biggest problem with this movie is that it seemed to lack real emotion and all the performances seemed flat and phoned in. I'm not sure what it was but I just felt like it was missing something to make me feel for the characters. Overall, a movie with a perfect ending that is worth watching but was lacking any real emotion from the actors. I give it a B-.

I dunno why but I have always liked well made films on dysfunctional families. This one falls in the same category. And when the film mixes comedy and religion which makes people sit up and take notice, laugh and think at the same time, the director and the writer's job is well done. The film was house full for the only screening in the LGBT film festival and it was very good to see a good mix of men and women to enjoy this thoughtful, hilarious and poignant comedy.Eileen is a god fearing woman who is all about Church and being catholic. She has devoted her life to this. This effort is noticed by the parish and she is nominated for the 'Catholic woman of the year' award which suddenly becomes very important to her. All the work she has done so far definitely vouches for her being the right winner but she faces a hurdle when its the time for interviewing he family with the bishop. She is now finding out that her perfect daughter Shannon is lesbian, is 5 months pregnant and is about to marry her life partner Angela. At the same time her son, Frank Jr. is planning to leave is wife because finally for once he has found his true love in another woman. Her husband is also a recovering alcoholic who takes side of his kids but with the controlling nature of Eileen cannot say much. There are some finely times comic scenes when Eileen tries to balance all this. She hesitantly attends her daughter's wedding. She is even helping Shannon and Angela with house chores because Shannon pregnancy is delicate. There are serious moments also, when she goes a little overboard in her controlling nature, forcing her husband to leave her and take a temporary break, her son wants to have nothing to do with her and Shannon loses her baby thereby despising her mother even more. Finally Eileen realizes that it is not the award that is important to her, it is her family and the happiness of the family. And at this time, her family comes to support her full time when the awards are to be announced which she rightfully deservingly wins.Kathleen Turner playing EIleen does a fantastic job playing her part. She shows excellent expressions and acting abilities as a woman trying to balance her religion and her family. She is hysterical in some scenes. Some of the dialogues are out-wittingly funny like 'I am not supposed to think. I am catholic'. The side story of Shannon and Angela has also been done very well. I am glad that the y showed at least Angela's parents are fully supportive of the relationship. I was a little confused by the whole equation that husband and wife shared but after a while, I was like yeah whatever, I don't care because I am enjoying this film a lot.Strongly recommended. It will be wrong to classify this film strictly as queer cinema but the festival did give me an opportunity to watch some good cinema. (7/10)