Stepmom: A Story About a Divorced Couple & a Story About a Couple in Love
Both Luke & Jackie were both happily married, movie viewers assume, at one time, but, in the movie, the once happy couple are clearly divorced. Their two children, Anna Harrison, played by Jena Malone, and Ben Harrison, played by Liam Aiken, in many ways, keep the divorced couple together. The couple does not live together, but they do have to see each other because either the father has custody of the children on weekends or the mother has custody of the children on weekdays. Now Luke is madly in love with Isabel, another woman. This makes Isabel the stepmother of Luke’s two children. Luke and his ex-wife, Jackie, are in fact the sole biological parents of both Anna and Ben.
The events in this movie could definitely take place today, in the last decade (the decade it debuted in theaters), two decades ago, or even three decades ago. It is clearly a modern film. There are a couple of instances where this movie has that modern feel to it. One of these instances is when Jackie shows her children a machine that feeds her medicine. Another instance is when Jackie is having a mammogram.
Movie viewers find out that Jackie is clearly dying from breast cancer. Breast cancer is a horrible disease that so many women around the world fight each day. Jackie clearly was also a fighter. She declined to get treatment for the cancer because she would have to live in some foreign country (for who knows how long) and be far away from her children. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with her two kids (and not miss any of the moments that she will ever share with them).
Isabel is a photographer. Her boss constantly wonders why she is always late to different photo shoots. She always has to put up with his demands and be at the photo shoots when he clearly wants her there. Jackie has her life to live and cannot always take care of the children. She trusts her children with Isabel.
The two women are two totally different people. One woman, Jackie, knows how to care for her children because she’s evidently had the experience and the other woman, Isabel, is trying to figure out which is more important in her life, devoting herself to the Harrison family or being a highly influential fashion photographer who always has to meet deadlines (and is in constant scrutiny with her boss). Jackie in fact is very skeptical of Isabel and her child rearing skills. She even wanted Isabel, when it got so bad, to stay far away from her kids. Isabel was working on a photo shoot in central park and she was supposed to watch Jackie’s two children.
Anna stayed where she was supposed to, but Ben disappeared and, when Isabel realized that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be, she panicked. Both Anna and Isabel, screaming Ben’s name, looked all over the park, but they just could not find Jackie’s now missing son. Ben, who didn’t feel he was missing, was found in a zoo and then taken to a local police station where he was again seen, in this particular film, performing a magic trick for an on duty police officer. (Ben loves anything having to magic. He wants to be the greatest magician ever when he grows up.)
The biological mother, Jackie, loves spending quality time with her kids. The relationship that she clearly has with her children is a relationship that any parent in today’s society should have with their children. Audiences and fans of the film can really identify with Jackie and know full well that she is an extremely caring mother who definitely loves her children more than anything in the world. This is apparent when she is riding horses with them on what looks to me like a farm, when she is taking them to school in her automobile at the beginning of the film (Jackie can really make her two kids laugh.), and when she is very ill in her bedroom (Jackie makes a magician’s cape for Ben. It has his baby pictures sewn into the fabric. Jackie make a quilt for Anna. This quilt has Anna’s baby’s pictures sewn into the fabric as well. One of Jackie’s hobbies is sewing.)
There is a restaurant scene, towards the end of the film, where Jackie and Isabel are seen together talking. Jackie says to Isabel, as she is referring to her children, “I have their past and you have their future.” I feel that this is an extremely emotional scene. Isabel tells Jackie that, when Anna gets married, she will be thinking all about her mom. Jackie tells Isabel that Anna doesn’t have to choose between herself and her stepmother.
She can definitely choose both her mom and her stepmother. This is really a very powerful scene where both Isabel and Jackie are teary-eyed. Both women are now very accepting of each other. Jackie accepts Isabel for who she is and Isabel accepts Jackie for who she is. They put all their differences aside. Nothing matters to both of them more than to just do what’s right for the two kids. Jackie, at this point in the film, knows that her kids are going to be just fine (and well taken care of). She really couldn’t ask for anything else, but to just see that her kids – her prized possessions – are in the best of care after she’s gone. I feel that it is indeed very sad to lose anyone, especially someone who we all love and care about very much.
Movie viewers and fans of this film really can fall in love with Jackie (the type of person who she is). Jackie always has her kids’ best interest at heart and she continuously cares about both her son and her daughter throughout the entire film. The kids do understand and comprehend the fact that she is dying. It is really hard for them to break away from their mom – a woman who has indeed been their for her offspring through thick and thin (e. g. Anna’s Soccer Games, The School Play, Family Talks, Rides From School, Visits To See Ben In The Hospital, Person To Person Chats With Ben On The Phone, Daytime Horseback Rides, Nighttime Horseback Rides, Etc. & So Forth).
We see Isabel change into a more family driven stepmother as the film progresses. Isabel even quits her job because she felt that spending time with the Harrison family was just much more important. Isabel’s boss was constantly in her face all the time. He would not ever leave her alone and Isabel would always have to put up with his demands on the job. Isabel was always sidetracked between caring for Jackie’s kids and being a career driven, by-the-book, fashion photographer. She would always be seen, in this particular film, working on her photo shoots in the big apple. There was one time when someone from Anna’s school called up the place where Isabel was intensely working with her boss. There was no one to pick up the kids from their school. Isabel just had to make sure that the kids were definitely Jackie’s kids.
Being the person who she is, Isabel volunteered to pick up Jackie’s kids at their school. The boss did not want her to go. He knew that she would be making a very big mistake if she left work right in the middle of a big and important project. It is so unbelievable to me that Isabel put her career on the line for both Ben and Anna. Isabel told Jackie that she was really walking on very thin ice with her boss, but, in spite of this, she continued to do favors for the biological mother. Isabel knew deep down that her prime association in life should be with Luke, Jackie, and the two children. They were really her life. Everything else was just secondary. Her job didn’t matter as much to her towards the end of this film as it evidently did at the beginning of the film.
Jackie’s home was situated in the suburbs. Isabel’s loft, within the great big city of Manhattan, NY, is where the first scene of this particular film was shot. She shares this loft with Luke and his two kids. It is interesting to point out that both kids even have their own rooms in Isabel’s loft. Perhaps the loft is owned by both Luke and Isabel. It isn’t really clear who owns the loft, but I know for a fact that Jackie is the sole owner of her home. This home might have even been Luke’s home too when the couple (lived together and) were once happily married.
Children of divorced parents will always have two bedrooms, one bedroom in their father’s humble abode to call their own and one bedroom in their mother’s humble abode to also call their own. We do not understandably see Isabel ever staying in Jackie’s house. We see Isabel talking with Jackie in her kitchen. Jackie has these squabbles every so often with Isabel. Either Isabel was not ever doing something to Jackie’s liking or Isabel just royally screwed up (This would be on a job that might be a piece of cake for Jackie to do, but much harder for Isabel to do.). There was one time when Jackie compared Isabel to slugs, trees, and clams.
This is when Jackie was talking with her ex-husband about Isabel. Luke says that Isabel is learning the ropes – learning about what it takes to care for Jackie’s kids. He also says that Isabel is really trying to be as good a caregiver as she can really be. Jackie tells Luke, in spite of all this, that slugs, trees, and clams have faster learning curves. Humans are indeed far more superior to slugs, trees, and clams. The comparison of Isabel to slugs, trees, and clams was, as far as I’m concerned, a big put down and a total far cry. This particular comparison definitely implies a negative connotation – putting Isabel right on the very bottom rung of the intelligence ladder.
Isabel, on the other hand, really proved herself to be a very important part of Jackie’s family at the end of this particular movie. Jackie asked Isabel if she could take some family pictures (Jackie & The Kids) and Isabel told Jackie that she’d be delighted to. This was the first sign of any tension (that was evidently apparent between the two women) now being alleviated.
Isabel takes a picture (a family picture) of Jackie, Luke, Ben, & Anna with her professional camera. It is Jackie who tells everyone in the room that the spirit of the holidays just wouldn’t be the same without a picture of the whole family. The whole family, now in Jackie’s mind, means herself, her ex-husband, Luke, Isabel, and her two children. I assume that Ben, Anna, & Luke all feel – the same way – that it sure wouldn’t be a real family without Isabel.
The camera is then set to automatic by Isabel and then she goes to sit with the family on the couch in the living room. The movie ends with this classic picture of the modern family – the mother, the father, the stepmother, and the two children. Everyone is now on good terms with one another and it really is a very pleasant scene altogether (with everyone getting along so nicely – the way all families in this country should clearly be seen). Jackie, at this point, in the film has changed her views about Isabel. Isabel has now primarily focused on taking care of the children, honoring what Jackie says to her (Because Jackie Is The One Who Has The Domestic Housewife Experience), and spending quality time with Luke, the only man she really loves (and hopes to marry).
Ms. Karen Lindsey says: “Above all, the fictional woman of the screen had to live for a man – her man, if she was lucky enough to be married, the man she needed to find if she wasn’t.” I think it’s a great moment when Isabel is in Jackie’s house (This is right on Christmas morning.). The kids have three adult role models to turn to (and evidently go to) in the house. Jackie is seen understandably very weak in her bedroom. Movie viewers see (and know) that she is dying of breast cancer.
I see the great impact and influence that Jackie has on her two children when they both come up to see their dying mom. Both Isabel & Luke are downstairs getting the house ready for the holidays. The three adults giving the children gifts is indeed such a priceless moment. Ben always wanted a magician’s bird and, earlier in the film, he told Isabel that this was the one particular gift he wanted the most for Christmas.
Luke surprised Ben with an empty cage, but Ben was rather surprised that there was nothing in it. His father told his son to say the magic words. I really could tell that Ben was a full-fledged magician when he both said the magic words and made a magician’s bird appear in the cage. Everyone around him, in the room, was so happy. Isabel was taking home movies with her video camera. She really, at long last, was a significant part of this family.
Ms. Lindsey also says: “The female actors played women who loved only men and children, but they themselves became superstars, wealthy career women whose lives, with or without husband and kids, exemplified fierce ambition. Thus, even the most conventional images of women in film gave their viewers another, unintended message, built into the very fact of the woman portraying a ‘good woman’ before their eyes.” Jackie, in this particular film, just loves her kids. Isabel is madly in love with Luke. Both Luke & Isabel really believe that Luke’s kids are their lives.
Luke and Jackie are now friends. They still have a lot of contact with each other even though they are both really divorced from one another. Anna would leave her soccer gear at the loft, for instance, and Luke would be seen bringing the latter to Jackie’s house. Arguments, every so often, between divorced couples is perfectly normal. Divorced couples are clearly not going to agree on everything, but the fact of the matter is that their children are the ultimate main reason why these particular ex-couples still see each other.
I feel that this is the typical situation when every single divorced couple in this country is researched. Divorced fathers, like in this particular film, do marry again and even divorced mothers also remarry. The fact is that Luke does think a lot about his ex-wife even though he is seeing another woman.
He tells his ex-wife that it should have been him with the cancer and not her. This indeed makes Jackie feel 100 times better and then the ex-couple both laugh. Movie viewers and fans of this film can now really see Luke’s genuine character – noble, concerned, genteel, thoughtful, and totally selfless. What I like the most about this film is the fact that all amends are made with Isabel (She is accepted and loved for the person who she is.) and she officially becomes a very influential figure to Jackie and the children. There are all kinds of families in the world. All families are different, but every family in this society has only one attribute in common and that is the ability for all kin members to really love one another and feel loved.
