Stage Mother (2020) -
This film had a story that we have definitely seen before, but that doesn't mean that it's not any good or worth telling again. It's actually very sweet, without going over the top and in that way it's also very simple.
When Texan Maybeline went to honour her son at his funeral after a long period of absence from his life, it was tough for everybody to get along and when it turned out that she had inherited his drag bar, things only got tougher, before they got better. So it's a story of coming to terms with things, finding a place in life and learning how to be a better member of society, whilst also putting on a good show.
Don't expect a big budget production. It's not exactly an A list film, but those that appear were generally very good, although a couple of them were clearly chosen purely for their looks alone. Bear was adorable, but not the best actor on the screen, whilst the gorgeous Lucy Liu played a very different character to what I've seen from her before and I really liked it. She instantly added something to the film from the moment she appeared.
Although it was such a simple tale, it was also very charming too and there was something kind of euphoric about it at times. I saw the effects that both worlds had on each other and it mostly resulted in positivity, leaving me with a warm and pleasant feeling inside.
It would be easy to see it as a blend of 'To Wong Foo, Thanks For Eveything, Julie Newmar (1995), and 'The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert' (1994), because of the themes that it covered alongside the obvious and it was always going to be compared to them as a film about drag queens anyway.
While this one is not going to sit quite so high up on my list of films to watch as those two, it will still get a good score, mostly for the fact that it was so easy to watch and enjoy. Sometimes it's nice to have the emotions toned down a little bit, as they are here.
740.09/1000.
