Witchy Women

This is a comedy of misunderstandings and I loved it. Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea were hilarious in their roles of two meddling mothers who find themselves working together on their town’s Christmas committee but who have completely opposite approaches to life. Barb is a recently retired head of accounting and a new volunteer. She is the  consummate professional: always organized, formal, and controlling- in fact, she is everything that goes along with that personality type. She finds her complete opposite in Kath, a employee of the chamber of commerce and longtime head of the committee.  She is loud and friendly, slap-dash and fun-loving. She gets the job done every Christmas, but always, one imagines, within an inch from disaster. When Barb (A-RAH, thank you very much) meets Kath the sparks of dislike and disapproval immediately fly. But they do have one thing in common. They love their children and think that their meddling in their lives is the only path by which the two grown children can achieve happiness. Rebelling against their mothers, Barbara’s son is the opposite of her, adventurous and impractical, and Kath’s daughter is a serious and hard working perfectionist. Shane is an actor who owns a tumbledown theatre, and Lauren is an architect who bears a strong resemblance to old Hallmark regular Jen Lilley

 The two mothers, meddling as usual, fix the two up on a blind date, not knowing that they are each others kids. When they find out, they are horrified, and immediately start working together to bust them up. Meanwhile Shane and Lauren conspire to “fake date” to keep their respective mothers off their backs about going on dates. The more the two mothers work together the more they learn to like each other and the more the young couple fake dates, the more they start to fall for each other for real. The mothers’ gradual bonding was very fun.

Of course everything gets messed up. The two mothers end up at loggerheads again, the young couple deciding not to see each other for real or fake, and both mothers end up in their children’s black books for interfering in their lives.

Of course happy endings abound professionally and personally for the two young lovers and the two mothers, proving once and for all (NOT!) that opposites really do attract.

This movie is a hoot from beginning to end, and I never ever even saw one episode of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch. To my fellow ignoramuses, Beth Broderick and Caroline Rhea used to star in the old Melissa Joan Hart vehicle together as sister witches, and there were many easter eggs and homages to the sitcom embedded in the script (apparently.)

Sorry, I can’t leave this review without pointing out that the actor who played Shane, Jon McLaren, looks exactly like the actor Patrick Wilson.