Roll becomes STAGE MOTHER Jacki Weaver, so ready, set, glow
by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent
There isn’t a Jacki Weaver cult following officially since she rocked the roll in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK as the understanding Mom to Bradley Cooper’s loveable wack job, but now there might be with her star-turn in STAGE MOTHER, coming Aug. 21 to some platform near you.
What is it about Jacki Weaver? Well, in STAGE MOTHER, about a Southern Baptist choir leader named (of course) Maybelline who inherits a drag bar, she glows. This diminutive powerhouse manages to walk through a new world with the guileless genius of Little Miss Muffet. As her character encounters Dusty Muffin, a comic and drag artist?
Needless to say, Jacki Weaver does not run away from the tuffet. Instead she wraps herself in taffeta, grabs a mic, and finds her own place in this unusual family of “outré” stage performers.
Clubber Lucy Liu, who is fantastic and great to see on screen any time, plays an outspoken single mother. When Maybelline gingerly asks Liu about the cross-dressing pronoun, “boys or girls,” she quips: “it’s kind of a time of day issue.”
Meaning these divas also hold day jobs. It’s this kind of human-scale drama, endearing for insights like so, that will probably send STAGE MOTHER into the pantheon of beloved films like THE BIRDCAGE and VICTOR/VICTORIA for mass audience appeal despite ruffling some conservative feathers.
Pull the curtain back on this one, for a very charming Adrian Grenier, who has a wholly different entourage here.
STAGE MOTHER has an eclectic cast, egged on by Dustin Muffin. Who warns the audience?
“This Muffin has nuts.”
STAGE MOTHER & The Cult of Jacki Weaver Happens Now
Official Word from the Prod Co.
When conservative, Texas church-choir director Maybelline (Jacki Weaver) inherits her recently deceased son’s drag club, she surprises her closed-minded husband and everyone else she knows by moving alone to San Francisco to save the club from bankruptcy. In this raucous, racy new environment, she begins to open up and find new meaning for her life, even becoming a mother-figure to the club’s flamboyant performers …until a surprise visit threatens to upend her new life. Thom Fitzgerald’s lyrical comedy-drama boasts a fiery supporting cast, including Lucy Liu, Adrian Grenier, Mya Taylor (Tangerine, PSIFF 2015) and drag superstar Jackie Beat.
Follow STAGE MOTHER on SoMo: facebook.com/stagemother2020/; twitter.com/stage mother/; instagram.com/
Opens Friday, Aug. 21 from Momentum Pictures.
Have fun.
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