John Waters may have gotten his start with ultra-low-budget films that were all grain and grime, but he knew exactly what to do with the warm gloss of mainstream ’90s Hollywood. Serial Mom shows that off perfectly. It needs to be shot like it’s in a world where nothing bad ever happens, because it’s about a woman determined–in her own murderous way–to make that true.
The film stars Kathleen Turner as Beverly Sutphin, superficially “Beaver Cleaver’s mother,” an achingly wholesome wife and mother who loves bird-watching and home-cooked meals. She’s warmly devoted to her husband, dentist Eugene (Sam Waterston), and their two children, perpetual romantic Misty (Ricki Lake) and dorky horror fan Chip (Matthew Lillard). She’s a good wife and an even better mom, someone who wants the best for her children while cheerfully accepting their eccentricities. She bakes fruitcake for parent-teacher meetings. She also has a cache of sleazy true crime books, secret correspondence with Ted Bundy, and a habit of making gleeful obscene phone calls to a neighbor: “Is this the Cocksucker residence?”
Thus far, Beverly’s secret life has been relatively stable. You can put an ornithology-themed dust-jacket over a lurid serial killer biography; if someone overhears you screaming invective on the phone, well, you were just talking to that darn cable company, and everyone knows how they are. But as Serial Mom kicks into gear, Beverly’s compartmentalization fails. One impulsive murder–Chip’s condescending asshole of a math teacher–and the rush goes to her head. Suddenly, every slight is worthy of the ultimate punishment. And swiftly, easily, without even noticing or caring, she goes from addressing wrongs done to her family to addressing crimes against etiquette and taste.
Serial Mom is consistently funny–Turner is an absolute delight as a kind of manic, vengeful Disney Princess in the second act of life, and the supporting cast is terrific, too, with special points to Waterston for his flabbergasted earnestness. There are great running gags (one of my favorites is how every college-aged girl around reflexively vamps for one of the detectives). The sheer wall-to-wall suburbia of it all is so perfectly rendered that even Beverly’s wardrobe–so clean-cut and crisply ironed–gets laughs. Most of all, both Turner and Waters have masterful comedic timing, and they make fantastic use of the surreal moments when it’s all too clear what Beverly does and doesn’t care about. My favorite example is her at-a-right-angle-to-reality response when Chip, clearly hoping to have all his fears assuaged, nervously mentions that his friend Scotty thinks she might be the killer. “For someone who doesn’t wear his seatbelt, Scotty sure is nosy!” Beverly chirps.
There’s also the satire, which is one of the film’s strongest points but also one of its weakest. It nails the celebrity culture that springs up around high-profile crimes, complete with merchandise, movie deals, and enamored fans; Misty hawking Serial Mom T-shirts and Chip sincerely apologizing to a victim’s brother only to then quiz him on who’s representing him for the inevitable TV show are both great moments. But some of these segments–a punk band enthusiastically pitching in on a teenage boy’s murder, Chip shrugging off all the victims (including his own friend)–don’t gel with the the movie’s expertly deployed and surprisingly effective sense of conscience. When it’s at its best, it has a better sense of how people compartmentalize, how the imagined murder is enticing while the immediate one is terrifying. That’s both hypocritical and human. When the film mines that tendency for drama or jokes, it’s great; when it ignores it for different jokes, it’s weaker.
Early on, it’s clear that as fun as Beverly’s crimes are to watch and as dickish as her victims may be, she isn’t justified. Chip explicitly says that his asshole teacher didn’t deserve to die; Misty is heartbroken by her faithless crush’s murder. A bit where Chip’s girlfriend panics at the sight of a real dead body, dissolving into terrified tears at how it isn’t like her beloved gore films at all, might be overplayed, but it’s also a key element to the film’s POV. Beverly isn’t a lovable eccentric. She may believe, in awful but time-honored tradition, that she’s just doing what everyone else wants to do, but she’s not. There’s a difference between weird and dangerous, and she’s on the wrong side.
While this moral line in the sand could make Serial Mom joyless, I think it instead gives it an odd but surprisingly effective force. It grounds the movie in some kind of reality, providing stakes without getting rid of the laughs. It’s deployed especially well towards the end when–even more spoilers ahead–Beverly, against all odds, succeeds in getting herself acquitted. Her family’s been rooting for her, obviously anticipating a guilty verdict but just as obviously praying that won’t mean the death penalty; safe in the assumption that everything will work out in a sane and reasonable manner, they’ve been able to be completely Team Beverly. Now, suddenly, they’re faced with bringing the face-eating leopard back into their home, even though they know exactly what she’s capable of. It’s like the movie’s explored the satire and then punched through to the other side, to what happens when the pop culture view wins and everyone suddenly remembers that serial killers make shockingly poor house pets. As the old proverb goes, God says take the Beverly Sutphin you want, and pay for her.
Serial Mom is streaming on Netflix.
