Moms do a lot for their children.
They love us. They lecture us. They drive us around and drive us crazy. They tuck us in a night, keep away the monsters under our beds and embarrass us in front of our friends. They ground us and keep us grounded in life. They are magnificent at times and seem malevolent at others.
Kevin Douglas Neighbors
Argonaut
They are our mothers. Thick and thin they are our blood. They are always there for us whether we want them to be or not.
Sometimes mothers are portrayed well in films, sometimes they aren”t. This list encompasses a wide range of mothers I”ve encountered in major motion pictures.
“Freaky Friday’s” Tess Coleman
We all remember the 2003 remake of the 1970s classic starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan.
Tess Coleman, played by Curtis, is the mother of Anna Coleman, played by Lohan. Tess is an overworked mother engaged to her soon-to-be second husband. She is too caught up with her professional life and love life to realize that she is neglecting her daughter”s emotional needs, and in a freaky turn of events she switches bodies with her daughter.
The two live each other”s lives for a few days, wreaking some havoc. Tess in particular deeply damages Anna”s social life, and in conjunction with the emotional neglect earns her a six on the torment scale.
Although she does cause some problems for Anna, in the end they both realize they haven”t been too empathetic to each other and their relationship is strengthened when they switch back. However, this doesn”t happen until the end of the movie, earning her a score of four on the nurture scale, totaling a final score of 10.
“Mama”
This 2013 thriller/horror movie stars Jessica Chastain as Annabel and Isabelle Nelissa as her boyfriend”s youngest niece, Lilly. Although Annabel is not their actual mother, this movie comes in as number four because of the girl”s ghostly “mother” Lilly calls Mama.
Lucas” two nieces are left in the woods for five years accompanied and nurtured by the phantom they call Mama until they are rescued. When rescued, the girls are in a feral state and require the nurture and care of a mother to help them assimilate back into civilization.
Bringing feral little girls out of the wild and into civilization takes some strong mothering chops, earning Mama a six in the nurture category, and nothing can bring more torment then having two mothers – especially when one of them is a ghost that wants to kill the other – giving Mama a seven on the torment scale for a total of 13.
“The Incredibles'” Elastigirl
Helen Parr, or Elastigirl, the mother of a handful of super heroes breaks in at number three. Parr is the definition of a super mom, both literally and figuratively.
She stretches herself to the limits to take care of her children and will do anything to protect them from danger, from safely descending them into the ocean from an explosion by using her body as a parachute or nagging them insatiably anytime they use their powers irresponsibly.
Parr”s strongest power is perhaps her power of nagging, almost equal to the expansion of her deep love for her family. Elastigirl racks up eight points for nurture and six points for torment due to her persistent nagging, bringing her to a total score of 14.
“Terminator’s” Sarah Connor
Sarah Connor is the mother and defender of her son John Connor, the savior and soldier of the future.
In the first installment of “The Terminator” series, she is approached by Kyle Reese with information that her son is the world”s only hope to bring and end to the robotic takeover, and she fights to keep her non-conceived son a player in future events.
In the next installment, “Judgment Day,” Sarah Connor fights to keep her now 10-year-old son John alive.
In the third installment, “Rise of the Machines,” she has died, but she has not stopped protecting her son. She hid a cache of weapons for John to access if and when the machines rise to power.
In the fourth and last installment worth mentioning, “Salvation,” Sarah Connor offers her son guidance from the grave through taped recordings that warn John of the future wars with machines.
Sarah”s ability and dedication to protect John from the grave and even before his birth, plus her combat skills give her a 10 on the nurture scale. And because she, unintentionally, drags her son into traumatic scenarios in every film, she earns a seven on the torment scale. She ends with a 17.
Molly Weasley
The mother of seven magical children, Molly Weasley is an easy choice for the No.1 movie mother.
Molly does it all. She raises seven children, takes in an eighth when she meets Harry Potter, she”s an active member of the Order of the Phoenix, she endures the death of one of her sons and strikes down Bellatrix Lestrange when she attempts to use the killing curse on her daughter, Ginny.
Molly has the biggest heart of any mother on this list, and she cares for her children so much it”s mystical. But she is also adept at tormenting and nagging her children as well. In “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” she sends her son Ron a Howler that yells at him in front of all of his friends. She”s constantly foiling the mischief of her twins – she has no hesitation in embarrassing, disciplining and tapping into her hot-headed nature from time to time. For this, Molly Weasley earns a 10 on the nurture scale and a nine on the torment scale, for a winning sum of 19.
Kevin Douglas Neighbors can be reached at [email protected]