It can be awkward visiting prospective mothers-in-law.
A New York couple, Helen (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Jackson (Johnathon Schaech), go to visit Jackson's mother (Jessica Lange in a Golden Raspberry Award-nominated role) in Kentucky. As you may have gathered from the poster, the prospective-mother-in-law hasn't far from Mom in mindset.
It's basically a big-screen Lifetime Movie of the Week.
Tropes found in this work:
- Clingy Jealous Girl: It's not very long whatsoever after meeting Helen that Martha stars to display obvious signs of jealousy towards her relationship to Jackson.
- Damsel in Distress: Helen for a lot of the movie.
- Dark Secret: Jackson blames himself for his father's death when he was a boy. He's innocent; it was his mother.
- A Deadly Affair: Jackson's father was killed by his wife when he found out about her infidelity - and she framed her son for it as a way of keeping him tied to her apron strings.
- Evil Matriarch: Hoo boy: she basically orchestrates an attack on a pregnant Helen to get Helen and Jackson to move in with her as part of her aims get her hands on her son and her baby.
- My Beloved Smother: Jackson's mother really wants her son and his impending child to stay in her life. And she's willing to resort to murder to do it.
- Not Good with Rejection: At one point, Martha tells Jackson that she "won't take no for an answer". It really says a lot about her character.
