Bad Moms

Plot

Amy Mitchell (Mila Kunis) is a married woman with two children, Jane (Oona Laurence) and Dylan (Emjay Anthony), who feels overworked and overcommitted. She works as a sales rep for a "hip" coffee company, prepares healthful, handpacked lunches for her children, does much of their homework, goes to all of their extracurricular activities, and is active in her school's PTA, run by the domineering Gwendolyn James (Christina Applegate) and her cronies, Stacy (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Vicky (Annie Mumolo). When she catches her husband Mike (David Walton) cheating on her with a nude dairy farmer via the internet, Amy kicks him out and attempts to keep everything together.

After a particularly stressful day, Amy publicly quits the PTA in response to Gwendolyn's overzealous bake sale plans. At a nearby bar, Amy meets Carla (Kathryn Hahn), a laid back, sexually-active single mom, and Kiki (Kristen Bell), a stay-at-home mom of four who adores Amy's dissent from Gwendolyn. Amy and Carla are irritated to discover that Kiki's husband is domineering and expects her to take care of all the kids and the house with no assistance whatsoever, while Amy and Kiki are disturbed at Carla's very hands-off approach to parenting. The trio embark on an all-night bender that inspires Amy to loosen up with her kids: she takes them for rides in Mike's classic car, gets them lunch from Arby's, forces Dylan to fend for himself to prevent him from being lazy and entitled, and takes the overachieving and constantly stressed Jane for a spa day. Amy herself decides to start dating, but finds herself inexperienced due to her early marriage and motherhood. She ultimately ends up striking a connection with Jessie (Jay Hernandez), a handsome widower at the school who's had a crush on her.

After Amy brings store-bought donut holes to the bake sale, she draws the ire of Gwendolyn, who uses her PTA authority to get Jane terminated from the soccer team. Amy is angered, and decides to run for PTA president in opposition to Gwendolyn. A meet-and-greet at Amy's home draws only one visitor, who informs them that Gwendolyn has launched a rival party at her own house, catered by Martha Stewart. In spite of this, the other moms, and Martha, swiftly abandon Gwendolyn's party when it becomes clear that she intends to lecture them all evening, leading to a successful alcoholic house party at Amy's.

Gwendolyn responds by putting drugs in Jane's locker, framing her, getting her kicked out of every extracurricular activities. Jane and Dylan both go to stay with Mike (who has agreed to an amicable divorce) in response to what they see as Amy's failure as a mom. At the worst possible moment, Amy loses her job because her younger, "hip" boss refuses to understand her reasons for taking time off.

A despondent Amy stays home during the PTA election, but is roused to action by Carla and by Kiki, who finally stands up to her husband and orders him to deal with everything alone until the meeting is over. At the event, Amy gives an inspiring speech about how all the moms are overworked, and that they need to take time off, do fewer and less stressful events, and most importantly, allow themselves to make mistakes. Amy wins by a landslide, and eventually winds up comforting a devastated Gwendolyn, who reveals being in charge of the PTA was her only way to take out her anger at her husband's arrest for embezzling from a charity.

Some weeks later, Amy's approach has led to positive changes: Jane is stressing out less, Dylan is actually applying himself, Kiki now makes her husband help out with taking care of their kids, Carla is now more responsible and hands-on, and all of the other moms, including Stacy and Vicky, are feeling more energized. Amy herself has gotten her job back with much better compensation after her boss sees how much he had taken her for granted, and continues to see Jessie. Gwendolyn has admitted that Amy's way has merit, and as the film closes, invites Amy, Carla and Kiki for a day of fun on her husband's private jet.

The ending credits play over the cast interviewing their real-life moms.

Production

On April 30, 2015, it was announced that Jon Lucas and Scott Moore were set to direct an untitled female-led comedy, based on their own original script. Bill Block of Block Entertainment and Raj Brinder Singh of Merced Media Partners would produce the film, along with Judd Apatow and Josh Church through Apatow Productions, while Merced Media financing the film. Leslie Mann was set to star in the lead role. This was Bill Block's first film produced through Block Entertainment after leaving QED International. Paramount Pictures acquired the film's distribution rights on May 8, 2015. The film was sold to different international distributors at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. On June 1, 2015, Mann and Apatow exited the film because of scheduling conflicts. On October 26, 2015, it was reported that Paramount had left the project, with STX Entertainment coming on board to handle the American distribution. Mila Kunis, Christina Applegate, and Kristen Bell joined the film, starring in its lead roles, while Suzanne Todd produced the film along with Block. On January 11, 2016, Jada Pinkett Smith and Kathryn Hahn joined the film, with Smith playing Applegate's blunt best friend, and Hahn also playing a mother. It was later revealed that Oona Laurence had also joined the cast.

Filming

Principal photography on the film began on January 11, 2016 in New Orleans and concluded on March 1, 2016.

Release

In May 2015, Paramount set the film a release date for April 15, 2016, but later, in July 2015, the studio moved the film out to a new unspecified release date. STX Entertainment later bought the distribution rights to the film and scheduled for August 19, 2016, before eventually releasing it on July 29, 2016, swapping release dates with The Space Between Us.

Home media

Bad Moms was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 1, 2016.

Box office

Bad Moms grossed $113.3 million in the United States and Canada and $66.1 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $179.4 million, against a budget of $20 million.

Bad Moms was released in the United States and Canada on July 29, 2016, alongside Jason Bourne and Nerve, and was projected to gross around $25 million in its opening weekend, from 3,215 theaters. It grossed $2.1 million from Thursday night previews. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $23.8 million, finishing 3rd at the box office. On September 3, the film crossed $100 million domestically, becoming STX Entertainment's first film to do so.

Critical response

Bad Moms received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 59% based on 135 reviews with an average rating of 5.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Bad Moms boasts a terrific cast and a welcome twist on domestic comedy -- and they're often enough to compensate for the movie's unfortunate inability to take full advantage of its assets." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 60 out of 100 based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

IGN gave the film 7/10, saying, "[t]he uneven Bad Moms is an entry in the slobs versus snobs genre that never quite realizes its full comedic potential." Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly gave it an A-, writing: "beneath all of its hard-R partying, rebellious debauchery, and profanity, it taps into something very real and insidious in the zeitgeist. It's one of the funniest movies of the year-and one of the most necessary." Peter Travers and Kyle Smith both gave 2½ stars out of 4, with Travers saying: "the movie cops out by going soft in the end, but it's still hardcore hilarity for stressed moms looking for a girls night out", and Smith saying: "Bad Moms is like Sex and the City: The Sneakers-and-Minivan Years, a good-natured girl-power comedy that balances a bland sitcom structure with some weird and hilarious moments."

Dana Stevens of Slate described the film as "seldom flat-out sexist", but went on to say: "the dad minds behind Bad Moms don't seem to understand, or be terribly curious about, the minds of mothers...Bad Moms' essential message [...] is that, rather than overturn the systems that cordon off "moms" from the rest of society by attempting to keep them at once as sacrosanct and as powerless as possible, women should look for the evil within the women around them — that the problem is other women, who seek their oppression for personal reasons of vengeance or jealousy. The role of structural sexism [...] in making good-enough motherhood in America all but impossible goes unexamined." The A.V. Club's Jesse Hassenger opined that Bad Moms "sells its characters’ struggle short by shuffling their kids off screen whenever it's convenient, and not even in the name of comical neglect; there always seems to be time and money to get a sitter. [...] [This] at times turns the movie into a referendum on unhelpful husbands of well-off moms, rather than the absurdities of Perfect Mom culture." Lindsey Bahr of the Associated Press wrote, "Bad Moms had so many opportunities to be great, edgy and insightful, but instead settles for the most milquetoast commentary possible on modern motherhood."

Future