Parents' Guide to

Stepmom

By Joyce Slaton, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Contrived yet effective family weepie.

Movie PG-13 1998 124 minutes
Stepmom Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 12+

Based on 5 parent reviews

age 12+

Sex discussion not listed

The daughter walks in on dad and girlfriend in the shower together. The daughter tells her mother that her dads girlfriend screams loudly during sex.
3 people found this helpful.
age 11+

Wow touching.

This is one movie my mom would cry at its good and touching I get excited when it’s on tv such a good movie.

This title has:

Great messages

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (5):
Kids say (5):

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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