On Saturday, Lifetime presented a Mommy Madness marathon, showing a series of melodramas that all, in some way, involved motherhood. They showed everything from Killing Mommy to Mommy’s Secret to Mommy’s Little Girl. They ended the night with not one but two premiere films! Needless to say, I was excited. After missing last week’s Lifetime movie (though I did DVR it so fear not!), I was looking forward to embracing the melodrama not once but twice!
The first premiere was Mommy’s Little Boy, which naturally came on immediately after Mommy’s Little Girl. Just judging from the title and Lifetime’s previous record when it comes to children, I assumed that Mommy’s Little Boy would be about a homicidal child.
It turns out I was incorrect. Don’t get me wrong, of course. The kid does kill at least one person. Actually, I think he killed two people but the film is a little bit ambiguous as to whether or not little Eric (Peter DaCunha) meant to let his half-brother Max (Auden Larrat) drown. You really couldn’t blame Eric if that was the case. Max was a stone-cold psychopath who started the movie threatening to attack a stray dog with a power drill. Max got whatever he deserved. As for that other murder that Eric commits — well, it’s self-defense. Eric really had no choice. Eric’s a good kid, dangit!
Instead, it’s his mother who is the problem. Briana (Bree Williamson) has a really nice house but she’s the type of mother who is too busy sunbathing (while wearing an American flag bikini, no less) to notice that one of her sons is drowning in the pool behind her. Briana is almost always drunk or stoned. She brings strange men home with her. She neglects Eric and sends him to school in grubby clothes. She murders the neighbor for being condescending, banging her over the head with the same skillet that will later be used to prepare Eric’s breakfast. Briana’s not the world’s best mother but, at the very least, she has a nice house.
Seriously, you have to see this house. Have you ever seen House Hunters? You know how the third house is always a really nice house that, we’re told, is a little bit outside of the house hunters’s budget? (“Now, this is listed for a little more than you said you were willing to pay but the price may come down…”) That’s the type of house that Brianna lives in. Unfortunately, Brianna has kinda trashed the place. At one point, she explains that she inherited the house after her parents died. At least, for once, a Lifetime movie took the time to explain why even the trashiest of characters always live in the nicest of houses.
Anyway, Briana’s killed someone and she forces Eric to help her cover up the crime. That kinda traumatizes Eric. He’d much rather live with his softball coach, Michael Davis (Paul Popovich). However, Briana is determined to get in her new boyfriend’s RV and flee to Mexico. And she expects her only remaining son to come with her. Whatever is Eric to do!?
Well, you probably already guessed what happens. Mommy’s Little Boy was a standard Lifetime film but I liked it. If nothing else, Bree Williamson deserves some sort of award for how totally and completely she throws herself into the role of Briana. It takes courage to play someone that trashy without winking at the audience but Williamson does it. Overall, Mommy’s Little Boy was an entertaining addition to Lifetime’s stable of films about mentally unstable maternal figures.
Through the Shattered Lens 