Mother's little helpers was a film that didn't dive into the themes it talked about enough and gave a very superficial take on this family coming together. The film is way too slow at the beginning and characters don't exactly react to certain aspects of the plot to the extent I thought they would when the film was unfolding, for example their were instances when a character would be upset about something and then another event will take place they would go back to being happy again in a short amount of time and it felt a little jarring. It also hit a point when the most interesting element of the film in the 3rd act hit and it felt a little underwhelming due to an underwhelming build up.
On the positive side you can tell the filmmakers put a lot of passion into writing the dialogue and crafting the movie, there were transitions in the film where they would cut to the characters in their childhoods and then go back to them now which felt like an interesting use of juxtaposition. Kestrin Pantera, Sam Littlefield and Melanie Hutsell's characters also felt like they got full character arcs, which is fitting as these three were the strongest actors in the film. However, the rest of the cast almost felt like filler and they didn't get very satisfying arcs in their story.
Overall I was fairly disappointed by Mother's Little Helpers which is a shame as you can really see the passion they put into making this. I would have loved to see more emotional weight to the consequences of the film as well as more satisfying arcs for some of the side characters.
On the positive side you can tell the filmmakers put a lot of passion into writing the dialogue and crafting the movie, there were transitions in the film where they would cut to the characters in their childhoods and then go back to them now which felt like an interesting use of juxtaposition. Kestrin Pantera, Sam Littlefield and Melanie Hutsell's characters also felt like they got full character arcs, which is fitting as these three were the strongest actors in the film. However, the rest of the cast almost felt like filler and they didn't get very satisfying arcs in their story.
Overall I was fairly disappointed by Mother's Little Helpers which is a shame as you can really see the passion they put into making this. I would have loved to see more emotional weight to the consequences of the film as well as more satisfying arcs for some of the side characters.