There has been a string of very bad films coming out of Québec lately, but "Comment ma mère accoucha de moi" is surely the lowest cinematographic moment ever reached in this once-proud province. Yes, there are still good movies made in Québec, but they don't feature already famous local names known through locally produced TV soap operas, children TV shows or stand-up comedy.
Edulcorating its propos with psycho-pop, humanities 101, quotes by Sun Tze, Saint-Exupéry, Machiavelli and some poor man's Freudism, reflecting the writer's lack of culture, the film throws together a bunch of downright stupid scenes mingled with social comments, some of which are lame reflections on local problems such as the health system. This shows perfectly Rose's lack of ability to write a movie that would stand on its own, and he rather capitalizes on easy social-comment and typecasting in order to have local movie-goers clap to whatever they recognize on the screen as being "theirs". It is clear that complacency is the very heart motive of this movie.
The scenes where Micheline Lanctôt sings along some English tune which is recurrent in the movie should have been cut, as they are very nightmarish; she clearly can not be convincing as a "radiating menopausal woman", and while most of her role would require her to be sexy, she is as sensually appealing as a dead trout in advanced stages of decomposition. In the same way, pre-detox, fat Ahmarani is as convincing as a Don Juan as our interest in his master's thesis is maintained through the movie.
Many clichés from successful movies (Tanguy, among others) were mercilessly stolen. I never thought I'd say this, but Patrick Huard manages to bring some life to this movie, but not very long until his antics become as tiresome as ever (viz, by telling jokes that are already too well known). His wearing of moose antlers is unfortunately not as entertaining as Michèle Richard's in "La Postière", and thus can not save the film alone.
