Jackson Baring (Johnathon Schaech) brings his girlfriend Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) home to meet his mother Martha (Jessica Lange). They're a couple of New Yorkers and Martha is alone in the big family estate. She wants his son to be home and she has a devious plan. Soon after the visit, Helen finds herself pregnant. Jackson proposes to her and they have a wedding back at the family estate. After a masked intruder terrorizes Helen, they decide to leave NYC and go back to the horse farm to help his mother fix it up.
This starts off too slowly. It's a lot of fake interaction that telegraphs where the movie is inevitably going. It is both predictable and boring. It improves slightly after the very long setup and the couple starts living with the mother. Jessica Lange deteriorates into a caricature. The husband is a ridiculous fool. The last 15 minutes is badly written. It's begging to end with a bang, but the movie ends with a whimper. It's really silly to end it in that way. It's simply a weak effort from writer/director Jonathan Darby.
This starts off too slowly. It's a lot of fake interaction that telegraphs where the movie is inevitably going. It is both predictable and boring. It improves slightly after the very long setup and the couple starts living with the mother. Jessica Lange deteriorates into a caricature. The husband is a ridiculous fool. The last 15 minutes is badly written. It's begging to end with a bang, but the movie ends with a whimper. It's really silly to end it in that way. It's simply a weak effort from writer/director Jonathan Darby.