Synopsis
When conservative, Texas church-choir director Maybelline inherits her recently deceased son’s drag club, she surprises her closed-minded husband and everyone else she knows by moving alone to San Francisco to save the club from bankruptcy.
Review
Thom Fitzgerald’s Stage Mother is a rather drab fish out of water comedy that might have all the best of intentions in the world, but its sugary sweet screenplay would be more at home as a made for TV movie on the Hallmark channel, one that’s only been elevated to the big screen due to the presence of A-List talent like Jackie Weaver and Lucy Liu.
Weaver plays Maybelline, a conservative church choir director who inherits her late son’s San Francisco drag club after he dies from a drug overdose. Travelling to San Francisco she discovers that the bar is going under with its dreary lip-synced drag shows, so Maybelline sets about bringing some southern charm to proceedings to change the club’s fortunes and make peace with her late son’s memory.
She encourages the club’s drag queens to sing live on stage rather than merely lip-sync, and it’s not too long before she starts to turn the club’s fortunes around. But then we knew that would happen, we knew right from the film’s opening credits because this is a film that’s only real intention is to try and put a smile on our face.
In these cynical times, there’s nothing wrong with that, sometimes we as viewers just want a warm hug of a movie every now and again, but no matter how well-intentioned the film might be, it’s too sugary sweet for its own good and simply not funny enough.
Whilst it’s great to see a film headlined by two women and giving representation to members of the LGBT community, it’s just a shame that the film itself is just so bland and formulaic. Weaver as always is perfectly watchable throughout the feature, but Lucy Liu feels a bit miscast as Sienna, the free-spirited single-mother and close friend of Maybelline’s late son.
Yes, the film’s message of love and acceptance towards the LGBT community has its heart in the right place, but it never really tackles any of the issues it showcases with any real conviction. In stark comparison to the recently released (and utterly fantastic) Saint Frances, the attempt to handle these LGBT issues feels more like a checklist for the screenplay to cross off throughout its runtime rather than feel truly organic to the narrative.
Maybelline, who for years wanted so little to do with her son because she and her husband couldn’t accept his sexuality, takes to her new surroundings in San Francisco like a duck to water and it just feels too artificial and false.
As the drama unfolds Maybelline turns into a Mary Poppins or Mrs Miracle like character as she helps the people around her, tackling everything from gender reassignment, drug addiction to domestic violence along the way: there’s nothing this Southern Texas woman can’t handle, whilst delivering a witty one-liner in the process.
I know the film has its heart firmly in the right and I’m sure it will find an audience with fans of shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, but Stage Mother was just too Dairylea for me.
Verdict
Despite all the glitz and glamour on screen Stage Mother never really sparkled for me! There was potential for laughs, but the end product is a feature that’s far too sugary sweet for its own good and simply not funny enough.
