Although Stepmom was dismissed as a contender in the 1998 Oscar race, it's worth giving a second chance to this rather cogent, sharp-tongued look at second chances. Susan Sarandon's performance as a mum about to be replaced by her ex-husband's new girlfriend (played by Julia Roberts) has a lot of bite, and it's a shame the script opted to trivialise her plight in its final reel. Initially, the rancour that passes between divorced mum Jackie (Sarandon) and trendy fashion photographer Isabel (Roberts) rings true, aided by the sincerity of Jackie's ex-husband Luke (Ed Harris) and the emotional plight of their children, who have the most to lose in their parents' divorce. As the drama makes clear, the children are the real victims in the agony that ensues between old and new love.
Director Chris Columbus, who is adept at showing familial chaos (he directed Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone) with a sanitised minimum of lingering emotional damage, actually manages to dig a trifle deeper than usual in exploring the jealousy and hurt that occur when the baton is passed between a birth mum and the younger wife who steps into her shoes. Stepmom fortunately manages to touch on that chord--showing how an ambitious woman might feel hampered by the responsibility of children just because she's fallen in love with their dad--as well as the haunting grief that it causes their birth mum. It's an issue that haunts millions of second wives everywhere, and while Roberts conveys the confusion of being taken for granted in the melee that follows, it's Sarandon who walks off with the film. She's relentless in her fury, and everyone else in the film--the generally excellent Harris included--is sideswiped. It's just a shame that Hollywood once again wimps out in the end, solving the problem by giving Sarandon a terminal illness. Instead of allowing Jackie and Isabel's relationship to unfold on something less than a high note, the movie has to quell its best thing with a false payoff because it doesn't know what to do with real life. --Paula Nechak, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
One for a plane journey This is a great plane film. You can turn in and out to it and every time Susan Sarandon will still be bravely holding it together and Julia Robers will be sweetly proving she can also be a good mom. Then at the end you'll probably cry in spite of yourself.
2 hours of my life I'll never get back I had to watch this film as part of a University course. Suffice to say I now remember why I stopped watching it halfway through a couple of years ago. Truly terrible doesn't even begin to cover it, boring, sentimental, dull and stereotypical you can't help but pity the actors for getting caught up in this sugary disaster. The plot makes no sense, nothing is really resolved and the only way they can find to deal with the modern phenomenon of two mothers was to kill off one of them. How comforting... more info
brilliant i love this film.i pretty much cry from start till end.i relate to it in a lot of ways except that i still hate my step mam lol and my mam survived cancer.i love this movie so much it is a must see
stepmom This film is AWESOME. The storyline builds gradually to an eventual climax as the two mothers learn that their children do not have to choose between them; fate has decided for them.
Their stepmother (Julia Roberts) "can have their future", their natural mother (Susan Sarandon) "can have their past.
This is a story of rivals learning to live alongside each other; against the odds.
![Stepmom [1999]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517B00E1HGL._SL160_.jpg)
