Review: ‘Fun Mom Dinner’ Means a Night Out Without the Kids

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Psst. Have you heard? On big screens across the nation women are behaving badly, really badly. And now, bringing up the rear of this summer raunch parade led by “Snatched,” “Rough Night” and “Girls Trip,” comes the rather tame “Fun Mom Dinner.” These mothers just want a night off for boozy shenanigans and some smoking in the girls’ room, which, of course, leads to harmless karaoke antics, mild flirtations, an Instagram faux pas and pot-induced paranoia.

These gals don’t start out as reunited pals, though — they only know one another through their children’s school. There’s bad blood between Kate (Toni Collette), who’s too cool for the dreaded Mom circle, and Melanie (Bridget Everett), a brash taskmaster with strong feelings about traffic safety. They stand down after a few puffs of a peace pipe in the form of a marijuana vaporizer pen and some encouragement from the recently divorced Jamie (Molly Shannon), a social media oversharer, and the new-to-the-school Emily (Katie Aselton), whose marriage is in a rut.

The director Alethea Jones, working from Julie Rudd’s thin script, opens with a dutiful montage of the women’s morning routines. (Cue the requisite baby poop disaster and the Go-Go’s singing “Head Over Heels.”) The continuous intercutting, however — must we keep checking in with the dads and kids? — eventually grows tiresome and distracting.

All four actresses have a natural chemistry and manage to give some inner dimensions to these otherwise archetypal characters. Though Ms. Aselton’s Emily is only marginally more realized than the others, it’s Ms. Everett who delivers the most memorable lines (“Oprah and Gayle, care to open up the friendship circle?”) — not at all surprising for those familiar with Ms. Everett’s, um, less-than-wholesome wine-soaked cabaret stage work.

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