On Media

A rebel mom and her nemesis

It’s too bad that Bad Moms sets up its conflict as one between women.

Amy seems to have it all—a lovely home, two adorable kids, a happy marriage, and a hip job. But in the film Bad Moms, that image of perfection shreds. Amy, played by Mila Kunis, discovers online that her husband is cheating on her. She is unappreciated at work, her son is lazy and feels entitled, and her 12-year-old daughter is already breaking under the same kind of stress her mom is carrying.

Amy rebels and finds new friends Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and Kiki (Kris­ten Bell). Carla has never tried to play the perfect image game. She propositions dads in the school’s drop-off lane, and greets Amy with, “Hey, I know you. You’re that chick that always picks up my kids from school when I forget slash don’t want to.” Kiki is a lonely stay-at-home mom whose husband ex­pects her to parent their four young children single-handedly.

“We all work too damn hard trying to make our kids’ lives amazing and magical,” declares Amy. “Their lives already are amazing and magical. Let’s be bad moms!”