''Trading Mom'' (also known as ''The Mommy Market'') is a 1994 American

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

written and directed by Tia Brelis, based on her mother Nancy Brelis' 1966 book ''The Mummy Market''. It stars

Sissy Spacek Mary Elizabeth "Sissy" Spacek (; born December 25, 1949) is an American actress and singer. She has received List of awards and nominations received by Sissy Spacek, numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including ...

Anna Chlumsky Anna Maria Chlumsky ( ; born December 3, 1980) is an American actress. She began acting as a child, and first became known for playing Vada Sultenfuss in the film '' My Girl'' (1991) and its sequel, '' My Girl 2''. Following her early roles, she ...

Aaron Michael Metchik Aaron Michael Metchik (born April 22, 1980), also credited as Aaron Metchik, is an American former actor, writer, and director, known for his role as Steven Floyd Torkelson on ''The Torkelsons'' and as Jeremy in '' Trading Mom''. Biography Metc ...

Maureen Stapleton Lois Maureen Stapleton (June 21, 1925 – March 13, 2006) was an American actress. She received numerous accolades becoming one of the few actors to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting winning an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award ...

, and

André the Giant André René Roussimoff (; 19 May 1946 – 28 January 1993), better known by his ring name André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and actor. Dubbed "the Eighth Wonder of the World", Roussimoff was known for his great size, which ...

in his final film appearance. It grossed $319,123 at the box office and received mostly negative reviews from critics.

Plot

Jeremy, Elizabeth, and Harry Martin are three children who are annoyed with their "nagging" single mother, a divorced and strict

workaholic A workaholic is a person who works Compulsive behavior, compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health. There is no ...

who the kids see as rarely spending quality time with them ever since their father had left them for an unknown reason. During their disastrous last day of school, Principal Terrance Leeby busts Jeremy for defending Harry against the school bully (who gets off scot-free), Harry for doing nothing wrong, and Elizabeth for holding (but not smoking) a friend's cigarette. He contacts Mrs. Martin and schedules an appointment for a home visit on the first day of summer vacation. They go to Mrs. Cavour, a mysterious elderly woman who works as a gardener and has befriended the siblings some time ago. She tells them of an ancient spell that will make their mother disappear along with all their memories of her. Upon returning home, they are grounded for the entire summer vacation with no camp, allowance, TV or anything by their infuriated mother. That evening while getting ready for bed, the children recite the spell which works overnight. The next morning, Principal Leeby shows up at their house to have a meeting with Mrs. Martin about the trouble her kids caused at school yesterday, but is dismissed as the Martin kids make up a story about her leaving for an emergency. Principal Leeby becomes suspicious and decides to contact social services after learning that the Martin siblings are hiding something from him. Mrs. Cavour tells them of a place in town called the Mommy Market, where any mother imaginable can be found. However, every customer receives three tokens and if a customer does not find a suitable mother before running out of tokens, they can never return. Jeremy, Elizabeth, and Harry select a wealthy French woman; a competitive nature hiker; and a Russian circus performer. They dislike them all and find them wanting in their care or dedication as mothers. After the third mother leaves and hearing that Principal Leeby has contacted the social worker, who suggests to put the three kids in separate foster homes, they seek out Mrs. Cavour again. She explains that the spell can be broken if they collectively recall something about Mrs. Martin. After being banned from the Mommy Market and discovering that Principal Leeby has contacted the police to investigate their mother's disappearance, each child remembers a fun memory with their mother, which brings her back to life. They find it to be the first day of summer and the day after they recited the spell. Everyone is happy as the children make their mother breakfast and embrace her while she, in turn, reduces their grounding to only one week and informs them that Principal Leeby is coming over for a visit. Shortly before the credits Principal Leeby reappears and is about to have a chat with Mrs. Martin about the problems her kids caused at school, only to be snared by an

animal trap Animal trapping, or simply trapping or ginning, is the use of a device to remotely catch and often kill an animal. Animals may be trapped for a variety of purposes, including for meat, fur/feathers, sport hunting, pest control, and wildlife man ...

that the nature-hiker mother had made to capture a

raccoon The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the North American, northern or common raccoon (also spelled racoon) to distinguish it from Procyonina, other species of raccoon, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest ...

Cast

as Mrs. Martin/Mama, the snappy French woman/Mom, the nature-hiker/Natasha, the circus performer *

as Elizabeth Martin *

as Jeremy Martin * Asher Metchik (Aaron's real-life brother) as Harry Martin *

as Mrs. Cavour *

as the Circus Strongman * Merritt Yohnka as Principal Terrance Leeby * Sean MacLaughlin as Edward, the Mommy Market's manager * Schuyler Fisk (Sissy's real-life daughter) as Suzy * Anne Shannon Baxter as Lily * Andrew Largen as Ricky Turner, the school bully * Nancy Chlumsky (Anna's real-life mother) as Dr. Gloria Richardson, the social worker * Ariana Metchik (Aaron and Asher's real-life sister) as the Girl Scout * Igor De Laurentiis (producer Rafaella's real-life nephew) as the boy in the black jacket

Production

''Trading Mom'' was filmed in

Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...

in 1992.

Home media

Vidmark Entertainment released the film on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

on October 18, 1994.

Reception

The film was mentioned in

Siskel and Ebert Gene Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) and Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013), collectively known as Siskel & Ebert, were an American film critic duo known for their partnership on television lasting from 1975 to Siske ...

's ''Worst of 1994'' episode. Siskel personally chose it; both he and Ebert gave the picture two thumbs down, describing it as "Depressing...too dreary and lame to be any fun...All of Spacek's multiple roles are disturbing and awkward; as a result, so is the film." Film critics

Jeffrey Lyons Jeffrey Lyons (born November 5, 1944) is an American television and film critic based in the New York metropolitan area. Early life Lyons was born in Manhattan, one of the four sons of Sylvia R. (Schoenberger) and Leonard Lyons, a newspaper colu ...

and

Michael Medved Michael S. Medved (born October 3, 1948) is an American radio show host, author, political commentator, and film critic. His talk show, ''The Michael Medved Show'', is syndicated from his home station KTTH in Seattle. It is available via Cable ...

of ''

Sneak Previews ''Sneak Previews'' (1975 to 1996: known as ''Opening Soon...at a Theater Near You'' from 1975 to 1977, and ''Sneak Previews Goes Video'' from 1989 to 1991) is an American film review show that ran for over two decades on the Public Broadcasting ...

'' ranked the film number 10 and 7, respectively, on their lists of the worst films of 1994. Film critic and historian

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...

gave the film one-and-a-half (out of a possible four) stars, saying: "This should have been a whimsical fantasy/morality lesson; instead, it's flat and lifeless, with poor production values. Although Spacek has a field day in four wildly different variations on a single role, the humiliation scenes will make you wince. There's always something wrong with a film that sits unreleased for two years, as this one did".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trading Mom 1994 films 1990s fantasy comedy films American fantasy comedy films 1990s children's fantasy films Films shot in Virginia Films produced by Raffaella De Laurentiis Films scored by David Kitay Trimark Pictures films 1994 comedy films Films based on American novels Films about wish fulfillment 1990s English-language films 1990s American films American children's fantasy films English-language fantasy comedy films