Basta Mamá

Fernando's 45th birthday dinner turns into a territorial war when his alpha-mom meets his empowered girlfriend. To survive the night, he must finally cut the umbilical cord or remain her "little boy" forever.

Overbearing mothers, including such stereotypes from vile mothers-in-law to controlling, overprotective coddlers of mama’s boys, have long been a comedy staple. It’s well-worn turf that, arguably, may have significantly overstayed its welcome. Thankfully, though, every so often, sketches, movies and TV shows come along that successfully find a way to breathe new life into this idiom. Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them. This sophomore (or is it sophomoric?) feature from director Flora Martínez is about as lame as they come when it comes to efforts of this stripe. The blame here probably isn’t so much the fault of the filmmaker as it is of the trio of writers who penned its positively dreadful screenplay, one virtually devoid of laughs from start to finish. In fact, it’s the kind of picture that reminds me of the source material behind the brilliantly inspired skits that parodied failed sitcoms for programs like SCTV and The Carol Burnett Show. But, regrettably, that’s not the case here. As 45-year-old Fernando (Raphael Zea) anxiously prepares to attend a birthday dinner in the home where he still lives with his domineering mother, Victoria (Marcela Benjumea), he worries about what kind of impression the event will leave on his fiancée, Leticia (Martínez), who doesn’t know he still resides with mama. And Fernando’s concerns are justified once the two women meet for the first time, a standoff in which they vie for control of the affections of the guest of honor, a conflict that soon turns into an awkward and bitter war of wits. The problem here, however, is that there’s almost no wit involved. The jokes are trite, fall flat and completely lack the zinging nature that makes such showdowns work effectively. In many regards, this is like watching an attempt at a comedy routine that’s about 60 years out of date. To their credit, the obviously talented trio of performers do their level best to try and make something out of this anachronistic mess, but it’s obvious a bigger chore than they’re capable of handling. To make matters worse, the film’s attempt at incorporating a measure of warm, fuzzy sentimentality in the final act only slows things down, delaying the hasty exit from the theater that many viewers are no doubt eagerly looking forward to by this point in spite of its scant 1:17:00 runtime. As material that has already been done so many times before (and better), it’s hard to fathom how this production ever got a green light. At the very least, the script should have gone through a number of extensive rewrites to add some tongue-searing bite to its dialogue and genuine inventiveness to its more-than-familiar narrative before being committed to film. In the end, however, as it stands now, the picture might well have also considered a title change from “Enough, Mom!” to “Enough Already!”