Heder plays Jeffrey, the titular twenty nine year old mama’s boy. His dad passed away when he was ten years old, and ever since he’s been umbilically attached to his mother Jan (Keaton). One day she opts out of their usual Friday night scrabble session to go one a date with Mert (Daniels), a motivational speaker whom she met after one of his sessions. Furious over his mother’s abandonment, he winds up at a coffee shop where he meets Nora (Anna Faris). Nora drops in and out of the rest of the narrative, which mostly focuses on Jeffrey’s completely jealous and slightly oedipal rage and subsequent revenge over all the time Mert is spending with his mother.
I’m not skipping over the rest of the plot to avoid spoiling the outcome; what’s described above literally is the entire conflict. Jeffery is the most unrealistic character I’ve seen since Gollum. His animosity toward Mert is thoroughly unjustified, which renders Jeffrey nothing more than a bully. Mert has little to no character flaws and tries his best to befriend Jeffrey, but Jeffrey goes on and on with plans of sabotage (which Mert always deals with gracefully) and general feelings of ill will. His mother isn’t particularly damaged or scared by previous relationships, as she seems to be having the time of her life when she’s with Mert, so why her son wouldn’t treasure her happiness is left unknown. The dude is completely selfish and, ostensibly, evil, which makes me wonder why in the hell he’s supposed to be the protagonist.
This is made all the more puzzling by Nora’s seemingly inexplicable adoration of Jeffrey. The two meet when he stops by her coffee shop, and, as far as I can tell, his employment at a bookstore is his only appealing quality. They spend the rest of the film hanging out while Jeffrey offensively rejects numerous opportunities to sleep with her. At one point he ruins her lifelong dream (of recording a song demo) to make her drive him to Arizona, yet she still is unbelievably transfixed by his totally insensitive demeanor. I suppose all of that is supposed to be humorous, but it comes off as sloppy and painstakingly unrealistic.
As if it isn’t clearly obvious, the film is nearly devoid of anything resembling unconventional humor. The real life MMO sequence and a couple scenes, usually featuring Nora of all people, are blessed with inspired mannerisms or quirky delivery, but generally the whole thing is a void. Daniels and Keaton turn in their lighthearted roles with ease, and Heder plays Heder, which is hit or miss depending on your fondness of Mr. Dynamite. I’m not entirely sure where the blame lies with this films lack of funny, but if I had to point a finger it would be directly at the script. The situations and scenarios are so marvelously out of touch with reality, and though I’m sure Tim Hamilton’s relative lack of experience in direction had something to do with it, Mama’s Boy might have fared better if the characters had something identifiable to do with their time.
On the technical side, both a widescreen (1.85:1) and full screen presentations are included. The film’s not going to win any cinematography awards any time soon, but it’s visually appealing enough to not put you to sleep, I guess. The audio site is enhanced through 5.1 Dolby Digital ear candy, though I certainly wouldn’t use Mama’s Boy to show your fancy surround sound system to your friends.
A couple bonus features are present should you choose to extend your experience with Mama’s Boy. Six minutes of deleted scenes are included in an uncut and completely out of order sequence. They do little to foster addition character development, so I applaud the decision to remove them out of the purgatory of the main feature. A full commentary with the director is offered for all of you extraneous detail desires. Hamilton actually comes off as an honest, nice guy and I sort of feel bad for detesting his picture. His thoughts on the soundtrack, specifically the prevalence of Morrissey and/or The Smiths was an appreciated insight, but I’m not seeing any of the alleged Annie Hall inspiration.
