Angela Bassett stars in Otherhood on Netflix. The comedy features Bassett as straight-laced widow “Carol Walker,” while Patricia Arquette stars as the bohemian free spirited “Gillian Leiberman” and Felicity Huffman as the neurotic, never-aging “Helen Halston” in this hilarious story about motherhood on the other side of 40. Bassett, Arquette and Huffman also executive produced Otherhood.
Directed by Cindy Chupak, Otherhood was shot on location in the Big Apple. In the movie, three moms find themselves as empty nesters who become frustrated at how little their grown sons communicate or show love for them, especially when they fail to reach out to them on Mother’s Day. The trio of best friends, who met when their sons were 10 years old, decides to take a trip on Mothers Day from Poughkeepsie, NY to New York City and visit their sons.
What the mothers and sons all discover in Otherhood is that they really don’t know each as well as they thought they did. The film also reveals some deep-rooted secrets between the moms about their husbands and families. In this process of rediscovery, the sons learn how special their mothers truly are and come to appreciate the sometimes-overbearing moms for their unique qualities and vice versa.
Otherhood is a film women of a certain age will certainly appreciate because it shows how it feels to be a middle age woman and look around one day and notice that all of a sudden you may have become invisible to others as you go about your daily life in this youth-driven society we live in. These ladies take that given reality and flip it. Bassett, Arquette and Huffman show through their characters in Otherhood that if you open up to the fact that although you may be a woman of a certain age, you are still valuable, and if you are alive, you can still be a fabulous sexy mama!
Check out Otherhood on Netflix now, you’ll be glad you did.
*** ½ Stars (3 ½ out of 5 stars)
