This was published 4 years ago
Life is still faintly fun after you bag Mr Big, just ask Sofia Coppola
On the Rocks, Sofia Coppola’s low-key serenade to father-daughter bonding in New York City, appears on its gleaming surface, to be a superficial caper about the first-world problems of hip creatives. But it’s also a clever depiction of parenting, and how it’s not the marriage, but children, that signal the death knell of a woman’s self-identity as a datable human being.
Since the arrival of the internet we’ve had almost two decade’s worth of "mummy blog" posts on the subject, like We're Not Meant To Bounce Back and How Motherhood Changed Me. We’ve seen those blog posts turn into novels and then novels turn into movies like I Don’t Know How She Does It and TV dramas such as Big Little Lies. We’ve seen how early motherhood can unravel women in Tully and The Letdown.
Laura (Rashida Jones) trying to whistle with her father Felix, (Bill Murray).
Yet so much of our culture’s depictions of child-rearing contain a subtextural commentary about the unfairness of it all, the inherent sexism; exhaustion, chaos and the damned mental load. It’s either drab or satirical.
We have only one patron saint of realistic motherhood – Jennifer Garner, replete in her athleisure gear, unintentionally embarrassing her son by dressing up as a cartoon character at his seventh birthday party. Still, she's Middle America's incarnation: a little folksy. The type who would blow her hair out of face because her hands are busy kneading bread.
Removed from the suburbs, On the Rocks sparkles. Coppola has reconfigured mum life as both heartbreakingly realistic – and still cool.
Coppola, a married mother of two girls, is showing us that motherhood can profoundly change you in ways you never expected; even change your marriage – and not necessarily for the better. But she manages to achieve this without turning it into a groaning sitcom like Everybody Loves Raymond.
The film opens with Laura (Rashida Jones) at her own wedding, swathed in white tulle, smiling coyly at her newly minted husband, Dean (Marlon Wayans). Chet Baker’s soft voice croons in the background. Seconds later the gorgeous tulle dress, high heeled shoes and Dean’s tuxedo are left scattered by the hotel pool, as Laura literally takes the plunge.
The next scene sees Laura picking up scattered dresses, toys and shoes in her apartment. The following morning, there’s the harried scene of getting the kids ready for school with her husband. Laura’s youngest daughter tries to put on her bejewelled high heels. Laura gently removes them and puts appropriate preschool shoes on her daughter – Vans sneakers, same as her.
This is what happens to the "happily ever after" narrative. Frothy fantasy dissolves into mortgage payments, school runs, bath time and practical shoes over pretty ones. The woman who once wore tulle now wears striped tops and pants with smart blazers. It’s all incredibly chic –for business casual, which is what comes to typify a mother’s life in those early years: labour, both paid and unpaid.
The time for pleasure, to be self-indulgent, has passed. Laura tells her pleasure-seeking father, Felix (Bill Murray), that she can no longer whistle since she had kids. She’s lost not just her voice but her capacity for whimsy. The thrill, as Chet would say, is gone.
Carrie and Big in Sex And The City.
It’s hard to fathom now but in 1998 when Sex and the City arrived on screens, being single over 30 was considered unfortunate. Carrie Bradshaw changed that, by making the experience universal but the fashion spectacular; the dialogue witty, the locations, aspirational. Life contained heartbreak, but in the city that never sleeps, it was at least glamorous to be unmarried.
On The Rocks gives motherhood the same treatment. Laura, like Carrie before her, is a writer living in a plush Manhattan apartment. But the parallels with Sex and the City don’t appear to be accidental. There's the trip to Mexico. There's Laura’s mum friend (played by a hilarious Jenny Slate) wearing a gold nameplate necklace in every scene she’s in, and habitually downloading her relationship troubles to Laura. And while Laura is polite, the message is clear: we’re not in Carrie’s Manhattan anymore.
Many of those women who over-identified with Sex and the City in their dating years are, statistically speaking, mums now, looking for a new representative; one who knows we don’t have time to wonder if he’s just not that into us, just as long as he’s not overly into anyone else.
Emily in Paris is being hailed as the spiritual sequel to Sex and the City. But women juggling Zoom meetings with homework don’t want to see a marketing dilettante traipsing through Paris. We are in the thick of thankless motherhood.
We want to see that life is still faintly fun after you bag Mr Big. We want a reflection of ourselves that doesn’t involve buckets of wine, nagging our kids and whingeing about “hubby”. Coppola shows us a world in which understated glamour is possible after the birth of children. And if that sounds like superficial frivolity, then it’s possible, that as harried mothers, we’re in need of some of that too.