A Bad Moms Christmas (2017)

A Bad Moms Christmas arrives as the second installment in a franchise devoted to the proposition that motherhood is exhausting and that the holiday season compounds the exhaustion by a factor of three. Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn return as three women who resolve to take Christmas back from the twin tyrannies of their own mothers and the retail calendar. The film is a raunchy comedy first and a statement second, which is to say the statement is mostly an excuse for jokes about erotic dancers in Santa costumes.

The cultural inventory here is modest. The cast is overwhelmingly white, with Jay Hernandez and Wanda Sykes appearing in supporting capacity and drawing no attention to the matter. The engagement with gender is real but unserious: the mothers rebel against impossible expectations, and the mother-daughter material carries a genuine sting, yet the critique is deployed for laughs instead of argument. A pact to reclaim the holiday gestures at resistance to consumer pressure, though the target is commercial frenzy and not the economic order that produces it. No LGBTQ characters appear. No racial themes are engaged. The environment goes unmentioned. The male body is played for sport during a Sexy Santa competition, which is not the same as a body-positivity program. Nobody is neurodivergent. History is left alone.

A broad, amiable sequel that preaches nothing and means it. The message, that mothers deserve a break, is delivered through slapstick and profanity, and the credits dance sequence confirms the priorities. This is the least sermonizing film imaginable, and there is a small, weary relief in that.