Serial Mom

Housewife Beverly Sutphin (Turner) seems to enjoy a life of domestic bliss. She has a loving husband (Waterston), two fine teenage kids, and a beautiful Baltimore home. Hell, she even gives the birds in her backyard Christian names. Admittedly, she's a little highly strung. A comedy, persuasively illustrating how suburban conformity hides its own latent psychopathic tendencies. When Beverly goes on the rampage with a knife, chasing a scruffy teenager through the streets in her Sunday best, it's in defence of all she holds most dear: family values, impeccable manners, road safety. Although this is John Waters' most approachable effort yet (a sign, perhaps, of how inextricably linked camp and mainstream cultures have become), the film loses focus in a poorly scripted courtroom anti-climax. A killer comedy all the same, with an uproariously funny, marvellously malicious performance from Turner.