Onscreen Moms We Love--To Hate
By Kit Bowen, Hollywood.com Staff
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Friday, May 09, 2008
OK, so she labored for days giving birth to us. But for every "good" mom who brought us chicken soup and gave us bad haircuts, there's a not-so-good one who may have put a little arsenic in that soup or used those scissors to cut, um, other things. So instead of celebrating those wonderful onscreen moms in our Mother's Day's spotlight, let's hear it for the moms who aren't so loving, can be horribly manipulative, or are even downright homicidal--the celluloid mothers we love to hate.
10. Mom: Deirdre Burroughs
Running with Scissors (Annette Bening)
Her deal: Deirdre is an unpublished--not to mention unstable—confessional poet who fancies herself hugely famous. Therefore, she has no time for playing suburban mom to her son, Augusten. When her marriage crumbles, Deirdre signs up for therapy with the highly unconventional and eccentric Dr. Finch, who encourages her to find herself. She eventually pawns Augusten off to live with the Finches--a kind of Brady-Bunch-gone-bad world where for some dog kibble is a snack, sedatives are consumed like candy and grand prophecies emerge from the bathroom.
Her parenting skills (or lack thereof): Deirdre’s quest to become the next great American author means she keeps her young son home from school so he can listen and applaud her for all her off-the-wall scribbling. But then ships him off the minute his needs eclipse her creativity and become too much of a burden.
Her motherly moment: Taking her teenage son to her psychiatrist’s home one day and making him sign papers so said psychiatrist can “adopt” him, thus forcing him to live permanently with the dysfunctional family. Thanks, Mom, appreciate it!