Theresa Is a Mother

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Audience Member loved loved loved it!!! Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member This is a rather special movie. Conceptually special in that it is a Press Family project. Well, there have been and will continue to be family projects and most of them will not be very good since most movies aren't very good. This one is unique in that it is very successful at what it sets out to do and it is entertaining fun. The movie is written by the lead actor C. Fraser Press. She directs with Darren Press. She plays a stressed out single mother of 3. Their three children play the kids in the movie. There are some nice real-feeling scenes with the kids. After being evicted from their Manhattan apartment, mother with three kids moves in with her parents at their place upstate somewhere. That is the serious set up for a comedy that actually delivers real laughter. The mother in the movie is an artist, well, that is stretching it. She is a wannabe singer/songwriter and not at all a good one (except, rather unconvincingly later). She's terrible and clueless. The content and point of view of the movie derives from a bohemian artist perspective. A lot of comedy also comes from the parents. Theresa has been a little out of touch with her parents. But now that she needs them she shows up. Comically they don't even know that now there are three children. They are quite befuddled by the whole thing while maintaining a facade of cheer welcome. I very much like the way the parents were handled. Before we meet them we hear that they are a bit old, flat, and depressed. But we soon find out there has been a surprising change that has made them much happier. A change that I would approve of. Theresa and the kids coming doesn't really work out well for the parents. They were better off before their daughter and the grandkids arrive. The parents are played by recognizable veteran performers, Edie McClurg and Richard Poe. They bring a strong sense of serio-comic characterization to their roles which helps to illuminate the whole movie. The Presses did a very good job casting the movie. She hunts for work up there, gets involved in very low end service which causes a dispute because she has underbid to get in. By this means she meets another parent character who brings us into a story development that wraps up the movie with a satisfactory conclusion. This is the local real estate guy played very well by Robert Turano. He is also having a Rock and Roll bar mitzvah for his son. He has a cluelessness about the needs or desires of his son that delightfully pokes fun at dads like that. Turano is excellent in the role. He plays that kind of uncomfortable with himself, awkward yet pushy small town businessman nerd who desperately wants to be considered cool. The impulse is to hug him and say it's ok or get the hell away from him. Most likely the latter. This plot direction, the bar mitzvah, provides Theresa with a gig and she delivers (with previously unmentioned skill, but not as a performer). I think it is really hard to make a successful feature comedy. This is one reason so many of them devolve into the final chase scene when the run out of ideas. The conclusion of this movie is much more satisfying and better than that. And it is a successful feature comedy. This movie is off beat. It is very well made and performed because it is very very well cast. It will make the viewer laugh. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Truly offbeat in its pacing and willingness to veer off on eccentric tangents, Theresa Is a Mother doesn't always succeed in its stylistic ambitions. But it does present a psychologically rich portrait of its central character, who elicits a bizarre fascination. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Theresa Is a Mother

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