After the success of last year’s “Bad Moms,” there has been a slew of raunchy, female-driven comedies like “Rough Night,” “Little Hours,” and “Girls Trip.” The most recent addition to this genre, “Fun Mom Dinner,” opened last Friday. The film — made by and starring a cast of mainly women — was written by first-time screenwriter Julie Rudd, helmed by Alethea Jones in her feature directorial debut, and produced by veteran Naomi Scott (“Other People,” “The Overnight”). “Fun Mom Dinner” stars Toni Collette, Molly Shannon, Bridget Everett, and Katie Aselton as four very different moms who come together for a night out on the town — and eventually discover that they have a lot more in common than motherhood.
We recently sat down with Rudd, Jones, and Scott to discuss their thoughts on the genre, the filmography of John Hughes, and the message they hope “Fun Mom Dinner” sends to viewers.
“Fun Mom Dinner” is now playing in select theaters and is available On Demand and on iTunes.
W&H: What appealed to each of you about this film’s genre?
NS: I’ve done a couple different types of comedy, so this was one that I hadn’t done before, especially with so many of the protagonists being women. This was kind of a dream come true for me — to just keep telling stories like these that haven’t been told before. If this is the beginning and this keeps opening the door to another story or a flood of stories, then I want to be onboard, especially if they’re comedic and entertaining.
AJ: I think we’re in a really special time where there are a lot of options to portray women in a more honest way, in a way that we haven’t seen before, and I want to keep being part of that. I’ve been lucky. My next two projects are super empowering, funny, colorful, elevated, big concept stuff. I just signed on to the “Barbie” movie. I’ve found myself working with extraordinary women to bring this script to life. It’s very imaginative and unexpected. Then after that, I’ll hopefully be doing a musical. I just like elevating stuff, just big, imaginative stuff.
W&H: Where did the idea for “Fun Mom Dinner” originate?
JR: The genesis of the idea came from my own life. When I put my kids in school, I made an amazing group of school mom friends. I was really surprised at how much they had come to mean in my life, how they had enriched my life, how appreciated I felt in this group, and how much I looked forward to being with them. The initial idea was just — I wanted to celebrate that feeling and those friendships, which I feel like, in a lot of movies with a lot of women, we hadn’t seen that yet.
W&H: What was it like working with this group of actresses?
AJ: I had no expectation that my first feature would have so many glorious [actresses] in it. That was a really big psychological hurdle to overcome very quickly, because I came onboard and we were shooting just a little under six weeks later. It was actually good to have that time crunch, because I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that I would be working with people that I had admired for years.
W&H: The characters are all dramatically different. Which one did you find yourself relating to the most?
JR: I think as a mom, I can relate to each of those women at different points in my life, at different points of my [experiences of] motherhood. I think they’re all a little bit me.
AJ: I relate to two. I was definitely an Emily [played by Aselton]. I was married and I really identified with her. Then I became a Jamie. I felt really protective of her [who is divorced] and very passionate about putting Molly Shannon in that role. I thought it was really important to put that line in about the married women. When you become single, suddenly you lose some of your married friends because they don’t want you around their husband. That sort of happened to me.
NS: I think I’m a little Emily as well, how you miss the romanticism of even just being young or unmarried or the freedom that comes with it. There is also a little Melanie [played by Everett]. I like the rules. I feel like she’s just such a unique character because she’s not just a one dimensional, she’s not like the stay at home mom who is militant. She’s so complex. All of these women have so many layers, and they’re complicated and interesting.
W&H: The film is an homage to 1980s films, to the work of director John Hughes (“Sixteen Candles,” “Ferris Bueller”) in particular. Where did the idea that these movies meant so much to these women come from?
JR: I’m 48, so I grew up with John Hughes movies. I loved this idea that these women were of that age, and that on this night they find themselves feeling again like how they were before they were wives, before they were moms. The talk of the John Hughes movies, in a way, is like that touchstone to who they were when they were younger and how their ideas of romance were formed. It was important to feel like they were sort of going back to a more reckless time, the time when they were teenagers.
With the look of the movie, we definitely wanted it to have an 1980s feel and have that be a layer in there because that’s the mindset I think we wanted these women to sort of reconnect with on this night with each other.
W&H: What do you think is the key message of the film?
JR: We all want moms specifically to leave the movie feeling like maybe they see themselves up there and that it celebrates the importance of female friendships.
