A Bad Moms Christmas Review: 3 Ups & 6 Downs

4. The Serious Drama Just Doesn't Work

The film is undeniably at its best when it's being crude and outrageous, but every time it tries to inject some serious emotion and sentimentality into the mix, everything grinds to a halt.

Countless scenes are devoted to the protagonists having serious heart-to-hearts with their mothers, and this becomes especially wearisome in the film's second half, where the audience is asked to sympathise with these frankly often annoying characters.

All these scenes do is drag the film's pacing down, and had it instead ditched the earnestness and kept things light and sarcastic, it would've been all the better.

Nobody came to see this movie for treacly statements about family: they came to see three overworked mothers letting loose.