This is the story of three generations of women, starting with family matriarch Maureen Stapleton, her daughter Stephanie Powers and the granddaughter, Melissa Gilbert. Powers and her mother do not get along, and Powers certainly doesn't make it easy. She admonishes her mother for having sugar and salt in her diet then at breakfast, lights up a cigarette and has a cocktail along with wine at dinner. Gilbert is trying to keep things easy going between the two, but as they helped Stapleton prepare to move from the big house she has lived in for years to a smaller condo, all of the resentments that have been held in begin to come out with Powers quite judgmental in spite of having made quite a few mistakes herself.
The gorgeous Stephanie Powers certainly is not as easygoing as Jennifer Hart in this TV movie, holding in bitterness much like Jane Fonda did in "On Golden Pond", but this time, it's directed from daughter to mother not daughter to father. It's obvious that powers adored her late father and resents the fact that Stapleton has sold off his desk without asking her first. The fact that Stapleton started packing before they even got there also riles her, and it's obvious that she's just itching for confrontation over anything, ridiculing her mother for her love of operetta and for having been a gladiola girl in the college musical.
Going through a divorce, it's obvious that Powers is justified in being unhappy in some sense, but she's a successful business woman, yet she is miserably unhappy in every way and treats everybody miserably when she gets into one of her moods. Irene Tedrow plays one of Powers' former mothers-in-law who doesn't even acknowledge granddaughter Gilbert, and James Spader plays one of Gilbert's boyfriends, creating more conflict between Powers and Gilbert who has accused her mother of disapproving all of her boyfriends even though Gilbert was conceived before Powers married her father.
The Academy Award winning Stapleton acts rings around Powers and Gilbert, but she gets better writing, playing a woman true to her generation and not neurotic about nonsense which the self centered Powers thrives on. Gilbert's character isn't old enough to be neurotic about nonsense, and she seems to be bemused over the prickly relationship of her mother and grandmother. She obviously can talk to her grandmother more than she can her mother, and that brings up conflicts between Powers and both the younger and older generations.
Basically an over-the-top soap opera, this ends up being unintentionally funny and spots, and Powers seems to be emulating Helen Lawson from "Valley of the Dolls". A great part for an actress to sink her teeth into, but not a role model she wants for a young daughter. Her complains to her mother don't seem at all justified, saying things to her mother about her father and their relationship that seemed to be one-sided from Powers' resentment, and her insistence on bringing up the past non-stop makes her rather unlikable. Still, she gives her all to this part, even though the big denouncement in a key dinner scene is rather overplayed and made to be more melodramatic than it needed to be. Freud would have a field day breaking down Powers' character, and would probably put a crown on Stapleton's head for making it through life with such a daughter.
The gorgeous Stephanie Powers certainly is not as easygoing as Jennifer Hart in this TV movie, holding in bitterness much like Jane Fonda did in "On Golden Pond", but this time, it's directed from daughter to mother not daughter to father. It's obvious that powers adored her late father and resents the fact that Stapleton has sold off his desk without asking her first. The fact that Stapleton started packing before they even got there also riles her, and it's obvious that she's just itching for confrontation over anything, ridiculing her mother for her love of operetta and for having been a gladiola girl in the college musical.
Going through a divorce, it's obvious that Powers is justified in being unhappy in some sense, but she's a successful business woman, yet she is miserably unhappy in every way and treats everybody miserably when she gets into one of her moods. Irene Tedrow plays one of Powers' former mothers-in-law who doesn't even acknowledge granddaughter Gilbert, and James Spader plays one of Gilbert's boyfriends, creating more conflict between Powers and Gilbert who has accused her mother of disapproving all of her boyfriends even though Gilbert was conceived before Powers married her father.
The Academy Award winning Stapleton acts rings around Powers and Gilbert, but she gets better writing, playing a woman true to her generation and not neurotic about nonsense which the self centered Powers thrives on. Gilbert's character isn't old enough to be neurotic about nonsense, and she seems to be bemused over the prickly relationship of her mother and grandmother. She obviously can talk to her grandmother more than she can her mother, and that brings up conflicts between Powers and both the younger and older generations.
Basically an over-the-top soap opera, this ends up being unintentionally funny and spots, and Powers seems to be emulating Helen Lawson from "Valley of the Dolls". A great part for an actress to sink her teeth into, but not a role model she wants for a young daughter. Her complains to her mother don't seem at all justified, saying things to her mother about her father and their relationship that seemed to be one-sided from Powers' resentment, and her insistence on bringing up the past non-stop makes her rather unlikable. Still, she gives her all to this part, even though the big denouncement in a key dinner scene is rather overplayed and made to be more melodramatic than it needed to be. Freud would have a field day breaking down Powers' character, and would probably put a crown on Stapleton's head for making it through life with such a daughter.
