And when Beverly chases down a witness to her crime, she's like a super-polite T-1000, a knife in her hand and a smile permanently plastered to her face.Įventually, as the subjects of true-crime stories generally do, Beverly has her day in court. (Waterston's performance, in particular, is a comic delight as he grasps the depths of her dark side.) Waters reserves the most outrageous set-piece, though, for the odious video store customer who doesn't rewind her videotapes. All the while, her family grows more and more alarmed, afraid any casual remark could set her off. The more serious the crime, though, the more severe the punishment.Īlready on the police's radar thanks to the phone harassment investigation, Beverly comes under more scrutiny when, in quick succession, she offs her son Chip's (Matthew Lillard) math teacher, the college boy who stands up her daughter Misty (Ricki Lake), and one of her dentist husband's (Sam Waterston) patients and his wife. For minor offenses, like stealing a parking spot, you may be the victim of a campaign of obscene phone calls - the sad fate of Mink Stole's divorcéa Dottie Hinkle - for which Beverly frames her nosy neighbor Rosemary Ackerman ( Diff'rent Strokes's Mary Jo Catlett), who doesn't recycle.
It's a film that revels in wish-fulfillment as Beverly takes down the cretins who challenge her worldview and/or pose a threat to her family, however benign. The saga of happy homemaker Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner), Serial Mom is the film Waters considers his best and it's hard to disagree with him. Suffice it to say, I didn't know what hit me.
I was spending a semester abroad in England and my flatmates decided to rent Serial Mom, which had just come out on video. Two decades ago, I saw my first John Waters film.
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