The Good Mother: A Review

The Good Mother has at least 4 strong female characters: the mother (Anna), her daughter (Emily), the grandmother, and Babe (Anna's aunt). They facet the movie with their performances and sparkle through the dominating men portrayed. Anna, her grandmother, and Babe all rebel against the grandfather. Emily is just herself and isn't a picture perfect portrait of the perfect child. Anna also rebels against her ex-husband, Leo, and her lawyer in the child custody suit. Babe rebels against the world seeking only Anna as a confidante.

The mother, Anna, tries to raise her child in a free environment-teaching her the facts of life at an early age and exposing her to all kinds of experiences. I think she is trying to escape the rigid world she grew up in. She was influenced growing up by Babe and unconsciously places some of that influence onto Emily. She is recently divorced from a husband whom never gave her sexual pleasure. She starts to have a lover who pleases her daily and has the same kind of ideals and same kind of occupation Anna has. She is not a stereotypical female in that she raises her child in the way she likes after she and her husband are not a team in raising Emily. I admire her open-mindedness and freeness in discussing anything with Emily.

Anna's grandmother is a typical female of her generation. She stands behind her husband in everything. He is the leader of the family-the boss of the children. He yells at Babe-she adores her. Babe was the grandmother's salvation. She had been depressed for ten years and then she had Babe and her life had meaning again. The part where she breaks stereotype is when Anna is asking her grandfather for money to pay her child custody lawyer. The grandfather harasses Anna with personal questions until the grandmother intervenes saying that she will loan Anna the money. I applauded her and admired her courage-finally standing up to her husband of over 30 years.

Emily is a bright and witty little girl who is growing up and asking questions about everything. Anna always supports her, never gets upset about little things or patronizes her for asking intimate questions. She leads a very well-rounded childhood until her father wins the child-custody battle and takes her to live with him. He doesn't have the same ideals as Anna so the audience knows that the way Emily thinks may change later in her life. Overall she is a strong female character because she does what she feels and that is admirable in anyone.

Babe is the rebel of the movie. I immediately liked this character. This young hell-raiser who stays out all night, hangs out with the "wrong" boys ends up causing distress amongst the family by getting pregnant at the age of 16. She is not embarrassed and even tells Anna what it feels like and what changes her body is going through. Babe has a deep influence over Anna's ideals later in life. Babe convincing Anna to go out in the boat when they weren't supposed to and asking Anna if she wanted to grow up to be like her mother, taught Anna to be more open-minded and not so obedient to the adults around her. When Babe drowned in the lake, this movie lost a strong female character. Not many females are like her; usually a movie contains only one. Maybe this is to signify that women like her are rare and amazing (like diamonds) in this world full of rule-abiding normal people (lumps of coal).

These four characters rocked the book. They stood up for women everywhere by breaking down years' worth of domination by men. Bravo for them.