Stepmom
Isabel (Julia Roberts), a successful photographer and younger girlfriend to Luke (Ed Harris) has to get ready for another role. Ready or not, soon she has to learn how to be a stepmom as Luke pops the question. Things get more complicated as Jackie (Susan Sarandon), Luke’s un-accepting ex-wife makes things a tad more difficult. What’s more, there are also the children to consider; Luke and Jackie have 12-year-old Anna (Jena Malone) and 7-year-old Ben (Liam Aiken), who are not fond of the idea of having a stepmom. As it is, it’s a major effort to keep them happy with the sudden changes in their lifestyle. Not that it’s easy for Luke, an attorney, who has just moved in with his girlfriend. Isabel, busy with her bustling career finds the adjustment of adding children into her life definitely not as easy as she thought. But, her love for Luke has her giving it her best shot. With a lot of effort, she struggles to win the children over with creative solutions. A rivalry begins between Isabel and Jackie as the children scramble to adjust to the changing frozen yogurt franchise family dynamics. Anna, out of a feeling of loyalty to her mother, rejects Isabel’s overtures. Ben, who is generally kind to Isabel, adds extra, if unintentional, complication with his mischievous nature. Around Jackie, Isobel behaves with contempt tempered by caution, believing she overcompensates for the failure of her marriage by spiling her children. Conversely, Jackie, a former publisher turned stay-at-home-mom, gives Isabel a cold microdermabrasion machines reception, her opinion of Isabel being, an overly ambitious career woman. She also continues to bear spite against Luke. After a long string of arguments and hurt feelings between Isabel, Jackie, and Anna, Luke proposes to Isabel, making her Anna and Ben’s soon-to-be official stepmom. This causes even more friction. As their “natural” mother, Jackie resents Isabel’s intrusion on a whole house tankless water heater number of levels but she is devoted enough to the well being of her kids to acknowledge what soon will need to be done. When she receives the news about her cancer, she goes through a range of negative emotions. Jackie goes through anger, at the woman whom she feels played a role in the break up of her family; at the fact that after all her sacrifices she’s made, she won’t even get to see her seo services company children grow up. When Isabel learns of Jackie’s illness, terminal cancer, it becomes the story’s turning point. The family, Luke, Jackie, the children, and Isabel, band together, in the beginning on a very shaky truce. More importantly, the two women, mother and stepmom-to-be, get together with their single goal and set aside their differences and find a common ground and finally come to terms with the fact that at some point, the latter will step into the role of surrogate mother. The conflict resolution comes when a redefinition of the family is made. In the end, Jackie herself included Isabel. In what could have been implied as their last family portrait, the two women posed side by side, suggesting that both were at peace—with each other and with future events. With its strong cast of actors, director Chris Columbus, with credits such as Mrs. Doubtfire and Home Alone, brings audiences a compelling new film. With Stepmom, he brings to life the joys and challenges of family life in the 90’s. Displaying various themes such as change, from the divorce of the characters played by Ed Harris and Susan Sarandon, Luke and Jackie, to the transition from life with their mother to life with their father and their stepmom. It can be a complicated and sometimes challenging film to watch especially with children—be prepared to explain terminal disease and divorce, among other things.