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Deep down, every mother dreams of having the perfect family: the perfect marriage, paired with happy, successful children who always get along. Of course, most of us realize that that kind of perfection is regrettably unattainable—but, in first-time director Anne Renton’s The Perfect Family, one woman seeks to maintain the image of perfection by hiding her family’s unpleasant reality.
Kathleen Turner stars as Eileen Cleary, a devout Catholic woman who’s devoted her life to her church and her family. When she finds that she’s been nominated for the Catholic Woman of the Year Award against her lifelong nemesis, Agnes Dunn (Sharon Lawrence)—and that the honoree will receive the prayer of absolution from the Archbishop of Dublin—she’s determined to prove that she’s deserving of the honor.
In order to win the award, Eileen and her family will have to be interviewed. Unfortunately, though, Eileen’s family doesn’t exactly meet Catholic Woman of the Year standards. Her son, Frank, Jr. (Jason Ritter), just left his wife and kids for a manicurist, and her daughter, Shannon (Emily Deschanel), is pregnant and about to marry her long-time girlfriend, Angela (Angelique Cabral).
With her award hanging in the balance, Eileen sets out to fix her family—or at least cover up their sins.
The Perfect Family is a quaint indie comedy that nevertheless feels like it was released about 20 (or even 30) years too late. Though loving and well-meaning mothers still struggle every day to raise perfect families of their own, the film has been done before. Audiences know these characters and their story a little too well—and, as a result, the subject matter feels a bit old-fashioned and simple-minded.
Then again, the film’s old-fashioned quality seems intentional. Many of the small-town characters seem a little bit backwards, and the Clearys’ spotless home looks like it hasn’t been updated since sometime in the ‘70s. The setting seems ripe for parody, yet Renton misses the opportunity, playing the characters and their environment a little too straight.
Still, though most of the cast members seem lost in their roles, Turner manages to bring humor and charm to her role as the determined but often misguided matriarch, who wants nothing more than to keep up appearances—even if it means letting her children suffer. Though she spends most of the film with a confused scowl on her face, she still keeps things light and amusing.
In the end, The Perfect Family is a cute movie but not an especially memorable one. It’s funny but not especially hilarious. It’s lightly entertaining but not especially noteworthy. And, like the family it follows, it’s likeable but unremarkable.
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