Nepotism not favorable in Showtime's Wilde Girls
By Jacqueline Cutler
The best part about The Wide Girls, a Showtime movie premiering Sunday. Nov. 4. is that it reveals that all is not lost in the world of mother-daughter relationships - at least not between songstress 70s Olivia Newton-John and her teenage daughter, Chloe Rose Lattanzi.
Choe (A Christmas Romance) is not a bad actress. All of the stomping and pouting she does in this syrupy, predictable movie are required to play Izzy Wilde, a kid with a powerful voice and the desire to become a star,
Newton-John (“Grease,” “Xanadu”) plays her mother, Jasmine Wilde, a veterinarian who once was - here’s the stretch folks - a singing sensation.
Jasmine left the smarmy life of stardom when she became pregnant with Izzy. The child’s father Jerome Ehlers, (“The Third Circle”), who is the love of her life, abandoned Jasmine when she told him she was pregnant. He has, however, spent the last 14 years trying to redeem himself.
Jasmine raises Izzy in a small town in Georgia, with the help of best friend Sierra Lampert, played by Swoosie Kurtz (“Sisters”, “Buabe Bay”). By far the movie’s strongest actress, Kurtz can’t help but steal the film with her sassiness.
Jasmine and Izzy live with Sierra in an exquisite mansion she inherited from her uncle, who dressed in drag as Peggy Lee. That is the movie’s best joke.
Written and directed by Del Shores (“Live Shot”), “The Wilde Girls” takes potshots at Southerners, who are portrayed as slow-witted fly-swatters. In one scene a record producer whom Sierra is trying to seduce literally tells her he’s gay, and she says. “You mean like homosexual gay?”
Jasmine, who seemingly always is on the verge of tears, eventually relents and lets Izzy try to make it as a singer. She even leaves Izzy in Los Angeles, because at 14, she reasons, her daughter can make significant life decisions.
Ultimately, mother and daughter reunite, Izzy’s father ends up rejoining their lives, and viewers can rejoice because it’s over.