A Bad Moms Christmas

This film is half a sequel to 2016’s surprise comedy hit Bad Moms, and half a standalone R-rated Christmas comedy – and while it doesn’t break the mould, taken for what it is, it provides plenty of enjoyable yuletide chuckles.

Premise:  As struggling mum Amy (Mila Kunis) attempts to cope with a surprise Christmas visit from her perfectionist mother Ruth (Christine Baranski), Kiki (Kristen Bell) is visited by her mother Sandy (Cheryl Hines) who struggles with boundary issues, and Carla’s (Kathryn Hahn) wild-child mum Isis (Susan Sarandon) also rolls into town.

Review:

There are two ways of viewing this film – either as a direct sequel to 2016’s Bad Moms, or as a standalone Christmas comedy.  Whichever way you approach it, A Bad Moms Christmas doesn’t quite manage to match the impact or originality of the first film, but it’s still an enjoyable and humorous yuletide comedy, of which there are too few.

One of the factors that prevented the first Bad Moms film from being just a collection disjointed sketches is that it had something “real” to say about the unrealistic demands which today’s society piles on to parents and the effects that those strains then have on the children.  This was personified in the first film by the battle between Mila Kunis’ Amy and Christina Applegate’s Gwendolyn, the seemingly perfect alpha-mum and head of the PTA.

“…continues the theme of rebelling against society’s unrealistic expectations…”

In comparison,  A Bad Moms Christmas doesn’t have a clear cut “villain” in the same way, but it does still continue the theme of rebelling against society’s unrealistic – or perhaps more importantly, unnecessary – expectations.  In this sequel, the self-proclaimed bad moms decide to strike back against the idea that parents need to organise a “perfect” Christmas otherwise it means they don’t love their kids.  This leads to a clash between Mila Kunis’ Amy – who believes that her kids would be happier doing relaxed, informal and fun activities over Christmas – and her own mother Ruth (played by Christine Baranski) – who is adamant that Christmas needs to be done “the right way”, with extravagant decorations, parties and carolling competitions.

Christine Baranski’s Ruth could have been set up as a pantomime villain in the same way that Christina Applegate’s Gwendolyn was in the first film (and in fairness, she does start off that way), but the film adds enough depth to her character that we can see where she’s coming from.  This is the first Christmas for Amy’s children since she divorced their dad, and Ruth is at least partially motivated by a desire to ensure that her grandchildren’s first Christmas without their father is a reassuringly loving one.

“…not quite as sharp, quite as original, and quite as laugh-out-loud funny as the first film…”

These subtle touches stop the film just becoming entirely one sided in favour of the “bad moms” against their own mothers, and even the storyline about the relationship between Kristen Bell’s Kiki and her over-attached mother Sandy (Cheryl Hines) finds a few “real” moments between all of the humour (of which there is a lot).  It’s only the relationship between Kathryn Hahn’s Carla and Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon’s Isis that feels like its played purely for laughs (as the few attempts at genuine emotion just feel a little too clichéd).  To make up for that though, Kathryn Hahn also gets a great subplot involving a “sexy santa” stripper, which has some of the funniest moments in the film.

Ultimately, this film is incredibly formulaic, as it not only follows the basic structure from the first film (in terms of rebelling against expectations), but it also adopts the troupes and clichés of a traditional Christmas comedy (the film even opens with a monologue from Amy about how she’s “ruined Christmas for her family”, before flashing back a week).  In this regard, there aren't a lot of surprises in the film, and there’s no denying that some moments in A Bad Moms Christmas do feel like pale imitations of scenes from the first film (such as a scene where the “bad moms” get drunk in a shopping mall, which was effectively just a rehash of the supermarket scene from the first film).

“...something I’ll watch while wrapping Christmas presents for years to come…”

But hey – it may not be quite as sharp, quite as original, or quite as laugh-out-loud funny as the first film, but it is still very funny.  Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Bell still get most of the funniest lines (while Mila Kunis plays the straight role), but all of the characters get laughs here and there, and there are even a couple of returning characters from the first film.

If this had just been a standalone Christmas comedy (and you can certainly watch A Bad Moms Christmas without ever having seen Bad Moms), it would have been a consistently amusing R-rated Christmas comedy (which are themselves few and far between).  So if you liked the first film, you should like this sequel as well (just brace yourself for the fact that it’s not quite as good) – and if you just like R-rated Christmas comedies, I definitely prefer this to, say, Bad Santa or Four Christmases.  It may not be a masterpiece, but I can see myself putting this on at home as something to watch while wrapping Christmas presents for years to come.