Reaction
The film received a mixed response from critics, and currently holds a 64% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert awarded it an average two stars (out of a possible four) and said in his print review: "Watch "Serial Mom" closely and you'll realize that something is miscalculated at a fundamental level. Turner's character is helpless and unwitting in a way that makes us feel almost sorry for her - and that undermines the humor. She isn't funny crazy, she's sick crazy." However other critics lauded the film and Turner's performance; "Turner has never been so over the top hilarious!" said the reviewer from Cosmopolitan magazine; Scene magazine called the film "Hysterically funny!".
Critics lauded Waters' style and savage satire of America's obsession with true crime, such as when Beverly Sutphin's daughter, Misty, is seen selling T-shirts outside the courthouse where her mother's fate will be decided. The film was a moderate success, however the $13 million dollar movie earned only slightly more than half its budget, grossing around $7.8 million in domestic box office sales. The film has become something of a cult classic since its release.
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Famous quotes containing the word reaction:
“More and more, when faced with the world of men, the only reaction is one of individualism. Man alone is an end unto himself. Everything one tries to do for the common good ends in failure.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“In contrast to revenge, which is the natural, automatic reaction to transgression and which, because of the irreversibility of the action process can be expected and even calculated, the act of forgiving can never be predicted; it is the only reaction that acts in an unexpected way and thus retains, though being a reaction, something of the original character of action.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Children, randomly at first, hit upon something sooner or later that is their mother’s and/or father’s Achilles’ heel, a kind of behavior that especially upsets, offends, irritates or embarrasses them. One parent dislikes name-calling, another teasing...another bathroom jokes. For the parents, this behavior my have ties back to their childhood, many have been something not allowed, forbidden, and when it appears in the child, it causes high-voltage reaction in the parent.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)