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What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Joyce Slaton

Jackie Harrison (Susan Sarandon) is unhappily divorced from Luke (Ed Harris), who's now shacking up with fashion photog Isabel (Julia Roberts), with the two kids shuttled in between the two homes. At first Isabel and Jackie are bitter rivals, and the kids side with Mom. But when Jackie develops fatal cancer, Isabel has to start taking up the slack in the Mommy role.

Is It Any Good?

3

At every step of Stepmom, audiences feel director Chris Columbus pulling the strings. The plot twists are as contrived as the swelling strings that fill the soundtrack, engineered in some Hollywood lab to jerk the tears right out of you. And yet it works, mostly due to the stellar acting on display.

Julia Roberts is predictably glowing, Susan Sarandon is confident and real, and the little nippers (Jena Malone and Liam Aiken) are so genuine that it's easy to forget that you're being pulled this way and that by the filmmakers, like a puppet on a string. It's manipulative. But there's enough polish on the film that it works. Ultimately, this is depressing but entertaining, a solid choice for a rainy night when no one feels like laughing.

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