If ever a film review deserved the headline “Bebitched,” it is Elizabeth Montgomery’s Sins of the Mother (1991). Adapted from Jack Olsen’s true crime novel Son: A Psychopath and His Victims, Sins does for motherhood what Montgomery’s The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) did for daughters.
Wooing her son one minute, tearing him to shreds the next, her Ruth Coe has the colorful vocabulary of Moira Rose; the histrionic tendencies of Rose and Lucille Bluth; and enough sinister Cluster B features to fuel an HBO limited series. On a cinematic scale of mother-son immorality, ranging from Psycho to Savage Grace to Ma Mère, Ruth’s relationship with son Kevin (Dale Midkiff of Back to You and Me) is mercifully mild. They are, in some ways, a more respectable version of con artists Lilly and Roy from The Grifters.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
