Because I Said So (2007) (WS)

Diane Keaton lights up the screen as an overbearing, matchmaking single mother in this slightly offbeat romantic comedy from director Michael Lehmann (HEATHERS, THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS). The film is a lot of fun, with both Keaton and Mandy Moore delivering energetic performances as a loveable and pretty believable mother-daughter team. After seeing two of her three stunning daughters (Piper Perabo, Lauren Graham) happily marry, Daphne Wilder (Keaton) focuses all her worries on Milly (Moore), her youngest, most insecure, and unlucky-in-love offspring. Twentysomething Milly has got her career as a chef figured out, but is clueless when it comes to love, attracting a never-ending slew of married, cheating, and closeted men. Taking matters into her own hands, Daphne places a personal ad for her daughter, interviewing the suitors herself and settling on one particularly promising young man named Jason. Meanwhile, clueless to her mother's plans, Milly starts to fall for Johnny, a cute musician who in spite of treating Milly like gold, is hardly what Daphne has in mind for her daughter's future. As Milly becomes increasingly involved with both men, Daphne must face whether maybe she could still have her own romantic life at age 60, instead of just living vicariously through her grown daughters.

Unabashedly a chick flick, BECAUSE I SAID SO's intended audience is clearly female, but that's not to say it's all soft. The movie's girl talk includes frank discussions about sex and orgasms, demonstrating the unusually close relationships between the film's women and distinguishing the film from others in its genre. While following a vague romantic-comedy arc, the film also explores the bonds between women, focusing more on the mother-daughter relationship at the heart of the film than on any of the male love interests.