Helicopter Mom

"Helicopter Mom" is a film that boggled my mind as I watched. I couldn't help thinking that perhaps Nia Vardalos was tired of being a celebrity and simply did this film to destroy her career...her performance and character were both THAT bad. Now she was wonderful in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" as well as in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding II"...but here she is simply someone I hated with every fiber of my being...and I am actually shocked I completed the movie. I assume it's because when she wasn't on the screen, the picture was actually pretty good...but that wasn't often enough.

Vardalos plays Maggie, a single mother whose every thought and action is about her teenage son, Lloyd (Jason Dolley). She constantly embarrasses him and behaves in a way like no mother on the planet...and is extremely cruel and self-centered throughout this. For instance, she HOPES that he's gay because that way no other woman will come between them...and then publicly outs the boy at school and signs him up to compete for a gay scholarship. There is, by the way, no evidence that he's gay...none. She just hopes he is for her own deranged and selfish reasons. She doesn't stop at embarrassing him for this...it's pretty much constant. To say this is a one-dimensional and broadly written character is a HUGE understatement!!

When the camera is NOT on her, the film is rather nice. Dolley is very good as her meek son and his scenes with his girlfriend are very sweet. I'd actually like to see more of this actor...just never, never, never in the same film as Vardalos.

Overall, a difficult movie to like and one I hope never to see again.

My first question is, who was the genius producer who read this material and thought it would be a good idea to make this a film? That person is either extremely ignorant, illiterate, or both. My second question is, has Nia Vardalos' career taken such a dive that she is now forced to take acting jobs in D-level movies like this crap? I turned this thing off after forty minutes (which was forty minutes too long) because it was completely and utterly unwatchable. It's not funny, the dialogue is unbearable, the acting is worst than community theatre level, and the entire film looks like the budget was $20,000. Everything about this film reeks of amateurism. It's a complete joke! Who in their right mind sets out to make nonsense like this??

I won't carry on further about this turd of a film other than to say don't waster your precious time or money!

This film is so stupid.I mean where does one begin? The mother (though the actress was really good) was plagued by a terrible script that made her attachment to her son seem like a reverse Oedipus Complex. Besides that this movie is cringe inducing with it's "gay humor" that doesn't really come off as funny but more unintentionally homophobic. You see only two gay teens (who are side characters in a movie trying to sell itself as an LGBT genre movie I might add)who act like the most stereotypical cartoons of real people ever made. The were kinda like the gay teens in high school that all the other gay teens don't like because they are stupid and obnoxious.If you are a gay like me it feels like a black guy watching a ministerial show. How this ever got a premiere at Frameline I will never know.

This movie has little plot and zombie-like "acting" which puts the deep freeze on anything you might want to get out of the film. Aside from Ms. Vardalos, there's a reason the rest of the cast is made up of unknowns and little known bit players. Ms. Vardalos is astonishingly horrible in this and quickly making herself even less relevant than she's already become by being in amateur movies like Helicopter Mom.

There are zero redeeming qualities about this movie and everything from the cinematography to the wardrobe makes it look like a bad student film.

The only thing that's funny about this film is that apparently the sales company, distributor, production company, producer and/or director are posting bogus positive user reviews to try and trick people into watching this thing. 99% of the people see right through it which makes the losers behind this movie even more pathetic than they already are for putting out a trashy movie like this. The very few critic's who even bothered reviewing this movie unanimously panned it.

Even if you can download this thing for free off the internet, your time is worth far more than subjecting yourself to 80 minutes of stupidity.

Greetings again from the darkness. Just when it seems everything we say or do is offensive to someone and most every topic is considered politically incorrect, a movie shows up that seems to say it's OK to be offensive if you are trying to make a worthy point. It's kind of like someone defending their actions by saying "I'm not a racist – I have an African-American friend."

Helicopter parenting is defined as an overly involved parent who thinks they are best serving their kid by staying involved in every detail of life – from homework to activities to love life. As sad as this phenomenon is, this movie from director Salome Breziner and writer Duke Tran is so exaggerated, a more appropriate title would be Chainsaw Mom. Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) stars as the clueless and relentless single mom obsessed with her son … especially the uncertainties of his sexual orientation.

Ms. Vardalos seems to have patterned her approach to the role after some of the wide-eyed over-the-top characters of Keenan Thompson from SNL. This is beyond caricature and it's also beyond annoying. The character is not believable in any sense, and is fortunately offset by more grounded performances from Jason Dolley, who plays her unfortunate son, and Mark Boone Junior, who plays her ex-husband and his father.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking on a topic like teenage sexual ambiguity/confusion with a comedic approach; however, much of this comes off like a cheesy sitcom. The only thing missing is the laugh track … and maybe Vardalos hiding behind a potted plant while wearing Groucho glasses and mustache. I say maybe, because it's possible the latter occurred during one of the many segments where I was rolling my eyes or shaking my head in disbelief.

Fortunately, there were some genuine father and son moments between Dolley and Boone. In fact, Boone's performance is so good, it's like someone changed the channel every time his character appears. Dolley and Skyler Samuels (The Duff) also have some very sweet and believable scenes together. It's just a shame that a moment as poignant as the confused son asking his father "When did you know you were straight?" is offset by mom publicly humiliating her kid and herself in yet another unimaginable display of inappropriate and cartoonish behavior.

The supporting cast also includes Kate Flannery (TV's "The Office"), Gillian Vigman (The Hangover), and Dallas' own Hockaday girl Lisa Loeb – who has a role as a teacher, and wrote the song for the opening credits.

Confusion over sexual orientation in teenagers is certainly a topic worthy of film treatment, as is the cultural phenomenon of helicopter parenting. The slapstick comedy approach seems to overwhelm the first message, while the 1980's sitcom style destroys any commentary on the second. The only person who thinks a boy's best friend is his mother is Norman Bates. And Hitchcock showed us how that turns out.