It's Mother's Day Weekend and life is just as swamped as ever with her routine. So Bonnie Somerville wakes up, walks out for the weekend with her old friend Ona Grauer and leaves Dad to make a hash of dealing with the kids in this blandly written but well performed Hallmark TV movie.
Most of the jokes in this one are about the level of 1970s television situation comedies in which the perfectly nice kids drive work-befuddled dad up the wall -- think "Brady Bunch". As such it would make yet another of the interminable series of rote Hallmark movies celebrating some holiday or other. Miss Somerville, however, takes the same sort of rote lines and situations that appear in every other movie and converts them into a funny, neurotic character.
There's still that annoying music score that tells you before anything happens what this particular scene is going to be about and how you should feel about it. It's clearly not the fault of the composer, but someone needs to have a stern word with the musical director. Valerie Biggins, I'm talking to you!
Most of the jokes in this one are about the level of 1970s television situation comedies in which the perfectly nice kids drive work-befuddled dad up the wall -- think "Brady Bunch". As such it would make yet another of the interminable series of rote Hallmark movies celebrating some holiday or other. Miss Somerville, however, takes the same sort of rote lines and situations that appear in every other movie and converts them into a funny, neurotic character.
There's still that annoying music score that tells you before anything happens what this particular scene is going to be about and how you should feel about it. It's clearly not the fault of the composer, but someone needs to have a stern word with the musical director. Valerie Biggins, I'm talking to you!