“The Meddler” — Susan Sarandon as Marnie
With “The Meddler,” Lorene Scafaria has created an instant classic mom character with Marnie, and given Sarandon an opportunity to inhabit one of her best roles. Scafaria tapped into her own life to write the screenplay, with Rose Byrne playing Lori, a screenwriter, and Marnie her mother, recently relocated to LA in the wake of her husband’s death. As Marnie and Lori adjust to their new lives in the same city, without their husband and father, they go through some growing pains. When Lori pushes her mother away, Marnie finds other things to fuss over, other people to spoil and nurture. With Scafaria’s script, and Sarandon’s performance, they absolutely nail the portrayal of the slightly overbearing mom who just wants her child to be happy. And the rambling voice mails? Are scarily spot on. Sweet and authentic, it’ll make you want to call your own mom.
“Rosemary’s Baby” — Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse
Rosemary Woodhouse doesn’t really get to do much mothering in Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby.” The majority of the film takes place during her pregnancy, but the film captures something universal about the terror of motherhood; the alien feeling of carrying a child, the ancillary figures who are at once overbearing or neglectful, pushing mysterious vitamins and green juices and advice. Farrow, who doesn’t even look old enough to be a mother, necessarily, expresses Rosemary’s vulnerability so perfectly, but she also has her firm maternal instincts guiding her, even though no one has her back. At the end, Rosemary does what she needs to do and comforts her grotesque infant—a child only a mother could love. It’s almost fated that Farrow would become one of Hollywood’s favorite moms, with her large brood of children from around the world.
“Wild at Heart” — Diane Ladd as Marietta Fortune
There’s a good chance that if you’ve ever seen David Lynch’s “Wild At Heart,” Diane Ladd’s performance as the scheming Marietta, mother to Lula (Ladd’s real life daughter Laura Dern) is laser-etched into your memory. Her theatrical, gonzo performance proves Ladd to be one of the best Lynchian actors ever, all breathy cajoling and totally committed ferocity. Technically, she’s not the “best” mother, since she does, after all, hire gangsters, thugs, murderers, and shady detectives to break up her daughter’s relationship, but she is one of the most unforgettable. Though the love story between Sailor (Nic Cage) and Lula is the heart of the film, Ladd’s Marietta is the unchecked id that drives the story. You’ll never look at lipstick the same way.
“All About My Mother” — Cecilia Roth as Manuela
Mothers are a persistent theme throughout the work of Pedro Almodovar (we also considered Penelope Cruz in “Volver” from his oeuvre). Almodovar’s mothers are larger than life creatures, glamorous, fallible deities, but they are also just people—individuals who are mothers, but who also have lives, loves, and secrets of their own. In “All About My Mother,” Manuela (Cecilia Roth) loses a child and in seeking out her deceased son Esteban’s father, finds other ways in which she can be herself, and also a mother. Almodovar wants to play with the myth of the mother, the myth of the woman, and test the boundaries of gender, the boundaries of age, and the moral compass placed on women and mothers in general. While it’s an ongoing theme in his work, the Manuela of “All About My Mother” is one of the most interesting, soulful and memorable representations of these elastic ideals.
