# Stepmom (1998)

### reviewed by
James Sanford

Perhaps there really are jobless, single women in this world who can somehow afford to maintain magnificent Victorian mansions in upstate New York, complete with a stable full of horses in case they decide to take a moonlit ride through the countryside. Maybe somewhere you could find a couple of kids who'd bristle at the thought of having a hip, vivacious and eager-to-please young woman like Julia Roberts in their lives. Possibly, if you searched far and wide enough, you might track down a fashion photographer with the power to call all the shots on her shoots, even changing entire ad campaigns on a whim. In lovelier-than-life movies like "Stepmom," such things happen everyday, along with junior-high Thanksgiving pageants that look like mini-Broadway musicals and lunches packed in Bloomingdales bags. But underneath the picture's glossy surface lies a hornets' nest of painful emotions -- fear, jealousy, shame, self-loathing -- the likes of which are not hard to find in the real world, especially in divided families. "Stepmom" is the story of how fate dictates that fortysomething Jackie (Susan Sarandon), the divorced mother of two, and Isabel (Julia Roberts), a twentysomething career woman, learn to respect each other for the good of the other people in their lives, and the film makes the valid point that when children are listening, parental figures have an obligation to behave maturely, rather than resorting to catty games and backstabbing to settle old scores. Isabel is now living with Luke (Ed Harris), Jackie's ex, with kids Anna (Jena Malone) and Ben (Liam Aiken) shuttling back and forth between Luke's sprawling Manhattan loft and Jackie's enormous country home, a showplace of quilts, flowers and antiques which makes Martha Stewart's digs look hard-scrabble by comparison. Though Jackie prides herself on being the kind of mother who'd rather set herself on fire than be late in picking up the young ones from school, her barely disguised disgust with Luke's new love cues Anna and Ben to do their best to make Isabel feel lousy. Jackie may be a terrific mom, but as a role model she's no better than the hapless Isabel. "Stepmom" doesn't come close to delivering the punch of director Alan Parker's "Shoot The Moon," a much sturdier movie on a similar subject, but nevertheless Roberts and particularly Sarandon work overtime to make this hit-and-miss script click. Theirs is an intriguing match-up of acting styles, too: Sarandon relies on her expressive eyes to show us Jackie's emotions, while Roberts conveys Isabel's uneasiness mostly through her unsteady voice and slightly awkward body language. A scene near the end in which the two meet in a tavern to discuss their situation becomes a wrenching tour de force for both actresses. In the end, the well-rounded characterizations are what sell the film; everyone involved has their own strengths and weaknesses, unlike "Patch Adams," which is dominated by one-dimensional caricatures that seem to have come straight off the assembly line at the stereotype factory. Though it has just as many corny moments as "Patch," as a drama "Stepmom" is considerably more successful, mostly because Sarandon and Roberts play the material gently, rather than aiming straight for the tearducts at every opportunity. The movie's setting may be superficial and dreamy, but its stars make "Stepmom" hit home. James Sanford

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