Hubby is out fishing tonight and I’m home alone with the doggies. That means that I have the remote all to myself and I get to watch whatever I want. No, we haven’t hooked the TV up in the living room yet, so I’m hanging out with the doggies in the kitchen. I’m flipping through the channels and I come across my idea of the worst movie ever. “Stepmom” is playing on TBS tonight.
When I first heard about this movie in 1998, I was so excited. It has Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, and Ed Harris in it. I thought there’s no way this movie could suck. I thought I was going to see an honest depiction of what it’s like to be a stepmom. Man was I disappointed. The first half of the movie was exactly what I expected it to be. The ex-wife didn’t like the new woman in her ex-husband’s life. The kids didn’t like the new woman. The new woman didn’t like kids and didn’t have a clue what to do with them. The poor ex-husband/dad didn’t have a clue how to help the girlfriend and tried his best to get his ex-wife and the kids to give the poor girlfriend a break. It was very realistic. I could seriously relate to everything that was going on. It was like they had watched my life and put it on the big screen. It was a GREAT movie.
Then they did the unthinkable. The only way that they could get the girlfriend and the ex-wife to get along was to have the ex-wife die of cancer. Oh, please! This wonderful, true-to-life movie suddenly became a Lifetime Movie of The Week. I wanted to throw up. Luckily, I was watching the movie at home on HBO and I could scream at the screen and throw stuffed animals at the TV. I finished watching the stupid movie only because I had to see how it ended. It ended exactly like you would expect a Lifetime movie to end. The girlfriend and the ex-wife called a truce just before the ex-wife died and the kids finally learned to accept the girlfriend as part of dad’s life. They all lived happily ever after in the family home. Bleeaacckkkkk.
I’m insulted that the movie had a typical Hollywood ending. Why not have the ending be more realistic and less melodramatic? I became a stepmom at the tender age of 19. The stepkids were 10 and 8. They hated me. The ex-wife hated me. But then she was going to hate anybody that was involved with Hubby, I was just the lucky target. Over the years, I’ve tried EVERYTHING to get along with this woman. And nothing worked. I always thought that if I just tried harder, then things would get better. Things never got better. They’re still crappy. But I’ve learned to accept that. Sometimes it’s just that way. Only took me about 20 years to accept that fact. Why not show that as the ending? Why did it have to be tied up with a cookie cutter Hollywood tear-jerker ending? In the movie, everybody looked like the good guy in the end. In real life, sometimes you’re the good guy and sometimes you’re the bad guy.
To this day, I’ve not been able to watch that movie. I scream obscenities at the screen every time I see it on TV and I flip the channel as fast as I can.
Add this to my list of reasons why I want to call a do-over for this weekend.
